Searching for answers, assurance in nation's capital

By David Harness

When news of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York first reached Bill Ferguson BA ‘82, MDiv ’86, he was driving to work: to the Washington, D.C., church he’s pastored since 1995. Arriving at National Memorial Church of God, on 16th Street, three miles north of the White House, Ferguson quickly found a TV and began drinking in the horrifying pictures.

There, in the stately stone church building, Ferguson learned that a hijacked American Airlines’ jet had crashed into the Pentagon, and that a fourth hijacked plane was believed to be headed for the nation’s capital.

While more stunned than panicked, Ferguson felt an urgency to get home to wife Deb Yerden-Ferguson BA ’85 and children Haley, 11; Karly, 8; and Isaac, 4. “You never know what can happen, so you kind of want to pull together and make sure you’ve got everybody in the nest.”

If explaining the day’s events to their children was tough, finding the words for the following Sunday’s sermon was tougher.

“I remember feeling, ‘What more can I say on this day?’” he recalls of that Sept. 16 service. His sermon title: “Oh, My God, Help!” More significant, he recalls, were the hymns, which seemed to provide assurance and emotional release. “I could feel the anxiety of the people, and the sense of releasing our cares to God.”

In following weeks, his role as pastor has grown in significance — as a source of hope and as a focal point for questions of meaning.

“I’ve tried to give people handles on how to deal with life, [now] that we’re not as secure as we thought we were,” he says. People’s priorities, he notes, have changed.

Ferguson has also tried to maintain a sense of calm, at a time when fears and passions have been kindled. “I think one of my responsibilities is to be a nonanxious presence for people, so that they can feel that all will be well because of God’s activity in our lives, and our faith that God will ultimately prevail.”

Still, the passions live, and in a city that thrives on political debate, divergent views will be expressed. National Memorial is a multiracial congregation, whose members include immigrants and government workers, liberals and conservatives — which can make for a potent mix.

For a congregation that has emphasized peace and reconciliation, the nation’s military campaign against terrorism has left even the most conservative members asking, “Are we doing what’s right?”

“If you’re a person of peace, you want to say, ‘None of this should be happening,’” says Ferguson. “But if someone came after your own children, then you’d want some kind of protection. Who can stand outside of this reality and say of God what is right and what isn’t?”

Still, the questions come, and when they do, Ferguson strives to lay aside personal views to call persons to “the most important thing: to seek the Lord.”

“People are really seeking answers from God and [as pastors] we get put in the place of God,” he says. “It takes a lot of restraint to keep your focus and make sure you’re speaking for God and not for yourself.”