Pastor to renew ties with Plymouth

The Rev. Dale Turner hasn’t preached a sermon at Plymouth Congregational Church in 45 years, but next weekend he’s going to give it a try.

Turner, 86, will step behind the pulpit during worship services Dec. 7 at Plymouth, 925 Vt., as part of the church’s yearlong celebration of its 150th anniversary. He’s among six of the church’s living former pastors who plan to visit Plymouth during the next year to preach and renew ties with the 1,200-member congregation.

Turner, who lives in Seattle with his wife, Leone, served as Plymouth’s senior pastor from 1948 to 1958, a period of dramatic growth in church membership.

“We had a lot of people join then, and it was a good, active church, as it is now. We’re eager to come back, even for a short time. I was 30 years old when I came to Lawrence, and it was pretty much the beginning of my active pastorate,” Turner said in a recent telephone interview from his home.

Turner will be joined on his brief visit to Lawrence by his wife; his son, Charles, and Charles Turner’s wife, Linda; and their sons, Evan and Carl.

“Charles was born in Lawrence in 1949. He lived there 10 years, and he’s eager for his boys to see where his early years were spent,” Dale Turner said.

Turner left Plymouth to become senior pastor at University Congregational Church in Seattle. He served there for 24 years, retiring in 1982.

He has written a religion column for the Seattle Times, the largest newspaper in Washington State, for the past 21 years.

Turner served as Plymouth’s pastor during an especially eventful time in the church’s history, according to Al Sellen, Plymouth’s historian.

He was pastor when the church celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1954, as well as when a disastrous fire badly damaged Plymouth’s parish house, built in 1916. Under Turner’s leadership, the parish house was rebuilt. The structure was renamed the South Church, because, at that time, land was purchased and a new wing, the North Church, was also built.

Turner proved to be a popular pastor.

“They needed to go to a second service to accommodate the increased number of people coming to church. At the beginning of his time as pastor, there were 560 members. When he left, there were 1,043,” Sellen said.

Outside of his duties at Plymouth, Turner was well known among the athletes at Kansas University, where he served as chaplain of the football team.

“I taught a course in the life and teachings of Jesus at the university for nine years. Wilt Chamberlain and Dean Smith and a lot of the football and basketball fellows were in our class,” Turner said.

A close friend of Coach Forrest “Phog” Allen, Turner also ministered to KU’s basketball team.

Turner was in the dressing room consoling Chamberlain after the Jayhawks lost the national championship, in triple-overtime, to North Carolina in 1957.

John Hadl, associate athletics director for development for the Kansas University Athletic Corp., has known Turner since the time he served as Plymouth’s pastor.

Hadl, a Lawrence native, was an All-America football player for KU in 1960 and 1961.

“Everybody would go to Dale’s church most of the time. He was just a great leader in the community and just a wonderful guy — always a cornerstone in this town of getting things done and taking care of people,” he said.

The Rev. Peter Luckey, Plymouth’s senior pastor, explained the significance of Turner’s upcoming visit to Lawrence.

“Dale hasn’t been around since 45 years ago, yet the lives that he’s touched, and the power of that ministry, has gone on to this day. It’s just a wonderful moment of gratitude and appreciation for one pastor’s leadership, and the effect it can have on the community,” he said.