Upon retirement, Ernest Dow reflects on more than 40 years as a pastor

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

Ernest Dow, a retired associate pastor with Auburn’s Huron Chapel Evangelical Missionary Church, officially retired from active pastor duty late last month, bringing to an end over 40 years of the church for Dow, much of it in Huron County.

 

Hundreds were on hand to celebrate Dow and all he’s meant to the congregations of both Huron Chapel and Living Water Christian Fellowship before that in the last 20 years. The special celebration took place in the auditorium of the Auburn church and featured food and treats, a slide show chronicling Dow’s life in the faith community and a number of guest speakers, including Huron Chapel’s Rick Howson, Pastor Mike Stanley, Dow’s son Keith and more.

 

Dow says he felt very blessed to be at the centre of such a special celebration and that it’s been incredible to see the support and well-wishings from so many people he’s touched over the course of his career. He said that, in addition to the warm response from locals late last month, he’s received calls and cards from people he knew in some of his first charges, coming back to thank him for all he’s done.

 

Dow was born and raised in the Mitchell area, eventually earning both his Bachelor of Science (Agriculture) and Master’s of Science (Crop Science) from the University of Guelph in the late 1970s and early 1980s before attending Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto and beginning his journey to becoming a pastor.

 

Before attending Emmanuel, he was part of a number of mission trips to Nigeria and the People’s Republic of Congo, specifically. This is something he would continue to do over the years, taking on ministry trips all over the world as God called him to serve.
In the mid-1980s he served as a staff associate and student minister at churches in Mitchell and Woodstock before becoming an ordained minister with the St. Joseph Island Pastoral Charge - a two-point United Church charge east of Sault Ste. Marie.

 

He would remain in that area - working with different churches and even as the part-time chaplain for the Canadian Forces Reserves - until he came to Blyth in 1999, serving full-time as the minister of Blyth United Church. He was there for two years before striking out on his own and building a congregation at Living Water Christian Fellowship, an evangelical missionary church on the outskirts of Blyth.

 

That dream lived from August of 2001 until November of 2017 when the church folded and both Dow and members of the congregation integrated with Huron Chapel, a like-minded church in the area. There Dow served as an associate pastor for two years and then as an executive pastor for four before retiring last month.

 

He says that not only is it time to make way for younger members of the leadership team, but that it’s good to bring in new people with new ideas. He says he will continue to be part of the church community and see his friends and congregation members regularly, but that the time to step back felt right.

 

Over the years, there have been highs and lows, he said, but there is a certain privilege to being part of people’s lives over a number of years. You experience deaths and tragedies, but you also see members get married and have children with those children, soon enough, having children of their own. Overseeing weddings, baptisms and more, he said, is among the most fulfilling things he’s done in his career, especially when you can see a family grow through the generations.

 

He also found it very rewarding to be part of the Christian world at a more official level, serving as a member and then as secretary of the Evangelical Missionary Church Canada East District Board for a number of years in the late 2000s and as a member and secretary of the Emmanuel Bible College Board of Directors for nine years from 2011 to 2020.

 

As for retirement, Dow said he doesn’t have any immediate, earth-shattering plans. He will continue to work with a pharmacy in Goderich and spend more time with his family, while keeping up as a member of the Huron Chapel family, knowing that it’s in the capable and faithful hands of Pastor Mike Stanley.