LAURINBURG — Pastor Rob Martin is no stranger to the Laurinburg Rotary Club. After all, he last spoke with the group 31 years ago. Thirty-one.
On Tuesday, the St. Andrews University grad gave the nearly 40 club members a Reader’s Digest version of all that has taken place in the time — and beyond.
After being born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, Martin decided he wanted to go to Davidson College in North Carolina.
“But I absolutely hated it there,” he said. “I couldn’t wait to get away from there.”
And he did. Martin left college to do what he really wanted to do — go to New York City to work in theater, print and film. He also spent time working as Santa at Macy’s.
From there, he was given the opportunity to go to Vienna, Austria, to work on stage before he decided to leave and relocate to Del Mar, California, to work as a club singer. It’s also where he met and married his wife Do.
Soon after, the Martin’s made a cross-country move to North Carolina, where they had been hired as dorm parents at St. Andrews University.
“I can’t tell you how radically life-changing that was,” Martin said. “We loved working with the students (and) the experience taught me respect for inquiry and self worth.”
It also led Martin to pursuing something he never wanted to do — attend Seminary.
“My father was a pastor and following in his footsteps was the very last thing on my mind,” Martin said. “But I did it, knowing I could walk away if I wanted.”
He hasn’t walked away since.
Laurinburg Presbyterian Church took Martin under its wing until he left for Seminary in San Francisco where, after a short time, he was given an assignment as a chaplain at a flophouse offering ministry to people “who had been discarded by society, many who were HIV infected.” He spent two years there.
“It was, perhaps, the most powerful worship service I’ve ever been a part of,” Martin said. “It was a real eye-opening thing.”
After two years, Martin was called to do a fellowship in Denver, and then he returned to San Francisco to finish his last year of Seminary.
His first call to ministry took the Martins to New Orleans at an inner-city church, then to the position as chaplain at Warren Wilson College, where he spent seven years. He returned to California as the pastor of a church in Palo Alto. where he spent the next 15 years.
But with his parents getting older, he felt the need to come back closer to home.
“I sent out several letters, one of which was to Laurinburg Presbyterian Church, which was looking fo0r a pastor,” he said. “But I never heard a word from them for six of seven months.
“So even though my feelings were hurt, I went back and looked at what I had sent them,” Martin added. “Come to find out, my cover letter misspelled the name of the man I had sent it to. So I retyped it and resent it.”
Martin got a call the very next day — and soon hired to the position he holds to this day.
“Laurinburg, even with all its troubles, is full of really good people,” Martin concluded. “It’s a good community and it’s my hope and prayer we can all work together to make it a better place.”
W. Curt Vincent can be reached at 910-506-3023 or [email protected].
