After 35 years, Pastor Dan says goodbye to Yorktown

When Pastor Dan O’Brien first arrived in Yorktown, he did not expect to stay.

He and his wife, Linda, had come from the Allentown area of Pennsylvania, where O’Brien had been serving at a church and looking for what he thought would be their next chapter. A college friend who had previously served as pastor of Calvary Bible Church encouraged them to visit.

They came to Yorktown. They liked the church. They liked the town.

And then, somehow, 35 years passed.

“I thought that we'd be here for a number of years, and then we'd probably move on to something else, but that didn't happen,” he told Yorktown News.

Now, at 70, O’Brien is preparing to leave the community that became home.

His retirement this month will close a 35-year chapter at Calvary Bible Church, where he has watched a small congregation grow, change and rebuild; celebrated weddings; buried members of the church; and stood beside families through illness, loss and tragedy.

For a pastor, he said, those moments — when “you get to be involved in people's most important parts of life” — are what he called “unique privileges.”

When he arrived, the church had roughly 60 people on a Sunday. Over the years, attendance grew to about 150, eventually reaching an average of 250 before another period of transition. The COVID-19 pandemic brought another sharp decline. Today, about 130 to 140 people attend on an average Sunday.

But the congregation he is leaving is, in many ways, a different church from the one he found 35 years ago.

About four people who were there when he arrived remain.

The changes extend beyond the church doors. O’Brien became woven into Yorktown through his children's lives, coaching soccer and basketball through the Yorktown Athletic Club and later becoming part of the Yorktown High School football community.

His youngest son participated in the Yorktown school district’s life skills program, where he connected with coach Mike Rescigno, who welcomed him onto the sidelines. For roughly a decade, he attended every football game. When the family recently gathered before moving away, Rescigno, known to many as “Coach House,” was there to show his support.

For O’Brien, it was another reminder of what Yorktown had given his family.

“It's certainly special,” he said of the community.

It is also what he expects to miss.

He and his wife are returning to the Allentown area, where her family lives and where they still own the house they left 35 years ago. They have spent the summer renovating it, preparing to move back into the same home they left as a young couple.

The symmetry is not lost on O’Brien.

He was 35 when he arrived in Yorktown. He is leaving at 70 — another 35 years later.

“That seemed to fit nicely,” he said.

The decision to retire was not made lightly. After decades of carrying the burdens of others, O’Brien said he had begun to recognize that he no longer had the same energy and initiative he once did.

He also came to believe that stepping aside was not only right for him, but right for the church.

Younger leadership, he said, is part of the church's next chapter. Tim Adams, who has served at Calvary Bible Church for a decade, first as youth pastor and later as associate pastor, will succeed him.

For O’Brien, leaving does not mean leaving ministry behind. He expects to find ways to serve at a church in Pennsylvania, but for now, he is looking forward to a quieter chapter.

And he is especially looking forward to entering it with the person who has been beside him through all 35 years.

“My wife has been my main ministry partner for 35 years,” he said. “She's been my personal rock and ministry partner and life partner all these years, and I couldn't have done any of this without her.”

After 35 years, there is a house waiting for them in Pennsylvania.

There is a new pastor waiting to lead Calvary Bible Church.

And then there is Yorktown — the place that became home.

“I believe that God orchestrates the events of our lives,” O’Brien said. “This is the way that it worked out.”