Pastor Samuel H. Richards, whose tenure at East Winthrop Baptist Church began in 1989 (twenty years and counting). He was born in Pasadena, Texas and adopted by Yankee parents. He graduated from Fryeburg Academy in 1965 where he played football, ran track, wrote poetry and participated in drama. He attended Bates College and majored in English with a minor in Geology. This was a season of spiritual skepticism which changed in 1967 after a God encounter that nullified most of his prior philosophy and initiated his journey to Christian faith. After college, Sam went to Europe to find himself and travel-the travel bit was successful. In 1969 He matriculated at the Oxford University for degree work in Social Anthropology. He earned his Diploma and Masters in that field before returning to teach English and Social Anthropology at a college preparatory school (St. John’s School) in Houston, Texas. It was while leading a field trip to the Yucatan that Lynne Taylor shared her faith with him and, unbeknownst to her, he invited Jesus into his heart (1972). Big changes began to happen. Not least was the decision to return to Oxford to study theology and while this was unfolding, God provided a spouse!

Pastor Sam and Lynne spent the first year of their marriage in Oxford completing degree work. He attended a conservative college at a liberal university! After graduating, a pastoral search resulted in a call to serve in rural Maine. (God knows what happened to Texas!) Pastor Sam’s first church was the East Sumner Congregational Church. In the first three years, he came to serve two other churches and transferred to The United Church of Warner where Pastor Sam began an association with the American Baptist Churches. That denominational link brought Pastor Sam back into the ministry in Maine after a hiatus of six years—during which time Sam and Lynne raised their young family, farmed and worked at Fryeburg Academy (as head of the English Department). Sam later began construction work (building homes and remodeling/repairs) in addition to farming. After supply preaching for a couple of years, Pastor was asked to come serve EWBC and subsequent to that service received an unanimous vote of call to become the full time pastor here.

Pastor Sam has been on the radio (pioneered “Faith Matters in Maine”), served as the President of the Christian Education League of Maine, created a summer camping program (Camp Butterpoint—some fifteen years in duration). He is currently the President of the Greater Augusta Pastors’ Society—an association of evangelical churches which has cooperated in jail ministry, worship sessions and mutual support/accountability for ministers. His theology is reformed (something you might expect more out of Cambridge than Oxford—but then, Oxford founded Cambridge). He believes in exposition of the Word as the foundation of his pulpit ministry. He also teaches Shakespeare to homeschoolers (Southern Maine Association of Shakespearean Homeschoolers: SMASH) (See maineshakespeare.com). The association has put on twenty productions, mostly comedies and several repeats! Defending the Christian worldview and faith are two of Pastor Sam’s passions. He counsels the hurting from the position of a pastor and is available as needed to the membership 24/7. The Food Ministry which he began has served (and grown) over fifteen years.