Faith goes beyond Sunday for the Rev. David Lima

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Religious faith is primarily a spiritual experience. But for the Rev. David A. Lima of New Bedford, faith is about putting his beliefs into action — action that brings people together as communities to serve and assist others.

From the pulpit to the streets of the city, Lima walks it like he talks it. He inspires with his words but backs them up with an abundance of civic involvements ranging from suicide prevention, to drug rescues and rehabilitation, to working with the city’s police, to providing healthcare services for adults in the region, and more.

Lima won’t be found in a mega church. Instead he is often found in the trenches, doing deeds inspired by the selfless pursuit of helping others.

Lima’s religion reaches far beyond Sunday.

Today, the 68-year old is the executive minister with the Inter-Church Council of Greater New Bedford, a position he has held since November 2005. He began with them in 1989. The Inter-Church Council is composed of 48 member churches with a mission of working for the good of the community with the motto of “Unity for Service” for the city, the country and the world.

Since 2000, he and his wife Joanne have been the senior pastors at the New Seasons Worship Center, a non-denominational church in East Freetown. He co-founded it in 1984.

Lima’s service to the citizens of the region is extensive. He’s played key roles in the Greater New Bedford Opioid Task Force and the Gun Safety Exchange. Lima has helped raise funding and awareness for the volunteer-driven Greater New Bedford Suicide Prevention Coalition and assisted with the founding of the Rise Up for Homes program, which aimed to help with funding shortfalls for cold weather sheltering.

He’s been chaplain for the New Bedford Police Department for more than a decade, participating in an outreach program where he began riding with police officers to assist in difficult situations.

Lima readily points out that he is not alone in his efforts to assist others.

“We don’t do anything alone, the bottom line is collaborations,” he says. “We’re always looking to bring people together to overcome our difficulties in areas such as families, the elderly, children, food, housing, and health care.”

Lima spoke with The Light about what drew him to the church, why he became a pastor, and his hands-on faith.

New Bedford Light: What attracted you to the church, and what inspired you to become a pastor?

David Lima: I grew up in a house that cared about God. We were Catholic growing up. My brothers and I were involved with the nine o’clock service at Immaculate Conception Church. My brothers were part of the ushering. I think I was 13 and they were 12, and I used to be the lector. At that time you would have somebody that would read the epistles, before the priest read the Gospels. 

I would tell everybody when to stand up and when to sit down. That was something they did way back when. … And then like a lot of people I started not being active in the church. 

In my house — we lived in the North End — we would get dressed for Sunday church, and leave the house, my brothers and I, and go to Ma’s Donuts. We’d kill an hour and then come home to talk about how wonderful Father Branco was. …

Somebody gave me a Bible and I started reading it. I started reading the Bible like a novel. I started on the first page and I kept going. I’m not going to tell you it came alive in my hands, but all of a sudden I was filled with all kinds of things. But I’ve always been a spiritual person. With a lot of different things that are happening in the world, not just the Catholic church, I was thinking I need to find it on my own. 

When my wife and I got married, we basically weren’t going to church but we were watching a couple of people on TV, and next thing we know we were connected to a Bible study and through that I became very dedicated in my studies. 

I was working a full-time job with no inkling of becoming a minister or anything else. I was reading avidly and I had a piece of paper in my Bible and I would write down any question I had. … 

After the Bible study we would get a cup of coffee, and we would be sitting in the back of the room while everybody else would be enjoying fellowship, and we’d both be looking for answers to my questions. And then somebody that we were working with (was) going to start a church out of our prayer group, and I invited them to meet the people that I was with and we went to support their starting of the church. My wife and I just thought we were going to that first service to support them and we never left. It was 40 years ago this summer.

Because of all the reading I did, I was asked to be a Bible teacher, and out of that they asked me to be an assistant preacher. And then it got to the point where I wasn’t satisfied with the things I was doing, as much as I was looking forward to studies and lessons and planning.

NBL: What inspired you to become a preacher?

DL: I found more fulfillment in working in the church helping people. I found I was able to help people. It was more than the work I was doing which was just making pay. When I did go into the ministry I left my work. At the time it was an up-and-coming quick lube company, and I’d spent a lot of time at a supermarket as one of the department managers. 

I took a third of a cut in pay with a young family, but we took a step out because my wife and I believed this is what we were supposed to be doing. So it’s not for the pay, that’s for sure. It took 10 years to get back to what I was making before I left the secular world for the ministry. But God has always provided. It seems as if we’ve made a difference.

NBL: How did you first get involved in the Inter-Church Council? What is its function? And why is there a need for it?

DL: I got invited to join the Regional Committee Congress and there was a faith network, so that’s why I was invited on. One of the members … was the then executive minister, Rev. Dr. Edward Dufresne. After working together for about a year in the network, he invited me to join the ministry board at the council. I served about a year on that. And the following year I was on the board of directors and as a clerk. And the following year the president was terming out, and I was nominated and became the president of the Inter-Church Council. So that’s how I got involved in the council.

The council is an ecumenical council. We are in our 86th year. Right now it is made up of mainline Protestant denominations. We go from Westport to Wareham. My church of course is in Freetown, and we’ve had over the years many different churches doing many different things. 

The mission of the council has always been bringing people together. The people of faith specifically, but then to see what we can do in terms of support for the community. …

The other thing we do is raise awareness of the needs in the community, volunteer opportunities. We let the churches know so if they have people who want to do volunteerism, we can connect them. So it’s an exchange of information, an exchange of volunteerism, which helps to grow the community. … Basically it’s trying to be good humans trying to help each other as we would want to be helped. And care for each other as we would want to be cared for.

NBL: Over the years there have been a lot of stories about a decrease in the number of people attending church, but I’ve recently seen multiple stories about young people who are reaching out to the church. Are you currently seeing an uptick in young people attending church?

DL: I think both. … I think politics has a lot to do with it, both in the country and in the church. I have always thought that there is a hunger and people just don’t know where to look. And I think sometimes we ministers do more damage than we cause good. We start pointing out what this one is doing wrong and what that one’s doing wrong. I don’t think any one group has the answer. …

The bottom line is I think each church has a gift. Each church has a calling. Each group needs to do the best with what they’ve got. There are times when we can come together and there are times when we’ve got to do things on our own. But we should always be positive in what the Lord would have us do, and that’s always been the care that we try to take.

NBL: Do you find that most people who leave the church return to the faith at some point? What are the reasons that people return to the church?

DL: I think that in the root of all people there is a desire for something more than themselves. I think just about everyone, even atheists, have an innate desire to trust in something more than themselves. Some look to science, but many look to the Lord, to what their understanding is for the Creator. 

The fact of the matter is that science cannot explain everything. And it always makes me laugh when people say, “Well, you know, that’s just somebody’s opinion in the Bible.” And I say, “What about science things like the Big Bang Theory? Isn’t a theory what somebody thinks?” 

The idea is that we want something more than ourselves and we seek that. Me and my understanding, what I’ve grown to believe, is I find that through Christ. I find that through the Bible. That’s where I am.

Yes, there have been people who have left the church. There are some that don’t come back, or might not go back to the same church. They might go somewhere else. 

Why did they leave the church? It could be any of a variety of reasons. Maybe they weren’t totally attached in the first place? Maybe they got offended by somebody in the church? Maybe they were offended by the pastor and something that he or she said? Or by somebody that sat in their seat on a Sunday? …

Spirituality, church, and faith ground us. It gives us a place to stand, a foundation to grow in. It always interests me how I watch young people sometimes leave the church because they’ve gone off to school, they get a job and they start feeling their freedom and stretching their wings, and they think the church holds them down. But then I find it interesting that many people come back, saying, “Well, I’ve got a family now and I’ve got kids and I want them to know who God is, I want them to know who Christ is.” They come back at first, maybe not for themselves, but for their family, because they realize there was something that they had that they need to share with their children.

NBL: What role should religion play in politics, if at all?

DL: The bottom line is we kid ourselves when we say there is a separation between church and state. There isn’t. And we kid ourselves when people try to claim that the Constitution says that we’re supposed to have a separation of church and state. It doesn’t. 

What it does say is that the state will not dictate what church is. We left England, and in England the church was the Anglican church, which was the state-sponsored church. Going back to King Henry VIII when he wanted a divorce and the Catholic church wouldn’t give it to him, so he just started his own church. That’s not to denigrate any other branches that have come out of them, but that is our history.

Whether you are fully adherent to a religion or you are loosely adherent, what you hear from the pulpit helps shape and form who we are. And so when I go to work I don’t take my faith and put it on the shelf. It comes with me. The things that I’ve learned and the things I’ve become that help shape me are with me everywhere I go. Sometimes we may have different ideas of what that belief is, but that’s who we are.

NBL: Can religion play a role in healing the current divides that we’re experiencing in America?

DL: It’s not religion as much as it is faith. Faith is the core of who we are. In Hebrews it says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” When we get religious we seem to have all the answers, but when we have faith we’re hoping to have the answers and to work towards them. So that’s how I refer to who I am and what I’m doing and all the people that we’re working with. Yes I do believe there is, but that’s when we start seeing each other like God sees us — as all one people. Right now, when you start pointing to “them” and you keep declaring “them” as a problem, then “them” can never become “we.” And God says that we are one family.

I’m not the judge, there will be a judge one day that we’ll all face. But when we declare ourselves judge and jury we’re saying that we think it’s all wrong and we don’t work to bring peace and love and joy, which some people will automatically go back to the 1960’s and say, “Let’s take out the joints and all have a love-in.” 

The bottom line is those words weren’t used by the hippies, they weren’t used by communes first, they were used by Christ first. They were used by the New Testament that we were supposed to love each other as Christ loved the church. We’re supposed to care more for each other than we do ourselves. And if we all lived like that then we’d all have a better place.

I think one of the biggest things that I talk about when I talk about things like this is that we all want unity. But what we’re really saying is “I want you to believe like me.” That’s not unity. Unity is when we all come together and understand one another and work together towards the common good.

NBL: How do you respond to atheists?

DL: Number one, I don’t get into arguments. Even the Bible tells us that that’s foolishness. The bottom line for me is atheists are atheists because that’s how they grew up. There was no faith element in their house. They were taught science-based or agnostic or didn’t want any involvement with anything. 

A lot of people who are atheists, they follow some of the great scientific minds who always want to be able to figure out what the cosmos is all about. But in the long run there’s certain things that just can’t be explained by any of our theories. 

Maybe I’m just a small, ignorant son of a gun, but I just don’t see how a Big Bang would push, or lightning going into a puddle of water would create amoeba that all of a sudden formed the intricacies of a human body — how the eyes work and how the muscles work and how it all comes together, and all the different animals and all the different things. 

People say it’s foolishness that somebody created everything. I think it’s foolishness that some random cells all of a sudden started creating all the different things that are out there.

The bottom line for an atheist, when someone is telling me that they can’t believe this or they can’t believe that, most of the time people are talking about judging the churches, judging the houses of faith because of the scandals that have existed, because of the different wrongs that have come across. 

There’s a legitimacy and an understanding that there have been wrongs, but we have to own them and recognize that we’re all human. Humans make mistakes and sometimes humans do very evil things based on who they are and what they’ve experienced and what they become. 

I’ll always answer like this to an atheist when I finally finish a conversation, which usually doesn’t take more than 10 or 15 minutes. … I’ll tell people that I’d rather believe in something and trust it with all my heart, try to understand it the best I can, and live by those standards the most that I can. And then when I die, if nothing exists then I won’t know about it anyway because nothing exists. On the other hand, if I believe in nothing, if I trust in nothing, if I just think there is no creator and it’s just science and I die and find out there is something there’s nothing I can do about it.

NBL: You’ve been married for 45 years. How has your marriage and relationship been advantageous to your vocation?

DL: It’s been both advantageous and sometimes a struggle. Being pastors is not an easy life unless you become a large ministry, and that’s not all it’s cracked up to be. The bottom line is the life of a pastor is difficult. Their kids sometimes see things that most people don’t see. You try to do as much as you can for people, but people will sometimes leave the church and that’s like losing a piece of your family. 

There are times people get angry with you because of the way things were said and done. Sometimes people don’t own up to things they’ve done wrong. 

There are times that pastors make mistakes too. I can tell you that I treasure my wife because she has allowed me to do what I do. And there were times when she probably felt like she was raising our kids alone because of all the work and the places and the things that I had to do. But the fact of the matter is it is a good marriage, one that has had its ups and downs in terms of struggles, but there’s always been a love there that gets us through all of it. It’s what gives us strength to do everything that we do. No marriage is perfect, but our marriage has been a blessing to me.

NBL: What are the greatest rewards to you for being a pastor?

DL: The reward is seeing people succeed. Seeing people who have come in hurt or seeking and all of a sudden being excited for God, excited for relationships being mended. There’s a lot of counseling that happens. That’s in the church. 

I’ve christened kids who years later are bringing me their kids to be christened. So you see generational growth. That’s what you get when you’ve been as involved as we have for all these years. You get to see people succeed in their careers and their lives. 

There are times when you see people at their worst, in their most difficult times of their lives — loss, struggles. We’ve seen people with addictions. We’ve seen people with divorces. We’ve supported people through all of these things. Sometimes we’re able to help, sometimes all we can be is a shoulder. 

We cry with them, we pray with them, we laugh with them. A good church becomes family. They may not come home with you all the time, they may not see everything you’re going through, but when there’s a need people come together. That’s probably my greatest joy in the church.

In the community, it’s multiplied. We’re able to give a voice. I’m not afraid to speak truth to power, whether it’s a politician or a community leader or a business leader. I do it respectfully but I will challenge different ideas or beliefs if I feel they should be challenged. 

Some people are concerned about doing that because of what could be a perceived backlash. The bottom line is because that is what I feel I should be doing. That’s what faith leaders can do. It’s not about pushing my agenda, it’s about helping the community, and that should be something we all do. But sometimes because of the positions we’re in some of us have the responsibility of doing that.  

That’s what I seek to be able to do.

NBL: Having moments of desolation is part of the faith experience. Have you had moments of desolation? Even Mother Teresa spoke of experiencing times of desolation.

DL: Anyone who will tell you they haven’t had that is either ashamed or afraid. We all go through that. We all experience it. Because everything is not a 100% every day of our lives. 

The Bible refers to it in quite a few places, and I’ve actually taught on it. Sometimes we have that wilderness journey. Like Israel did when they left Egypt and they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before God allowed them into the promised land. Basically because of how they were acting, what they were doing and how they rejected some of the things Moses was telling them God wanted. 

In other times you see it with the Apostles, and I think one of those things that can be a great assist, is when you recognize the experience. For instance, the Apostle Paul who wrote most of the New Testament, with all the different epistles, when it comes to sin and temptation, he says that he is the greatest sinner of all. He’s been tempted more than all. He calls himself a wretched man, but yet look at all the things he did. 

That tells me that some of the struggles I have had, some of the doubts that I have had has helped me grow. The Apostle Peter, he walked away from the crucifixion, he went back to fishing until Christ reappeared to him. There are moments of crisis of faith. 

I’ve experienced some of those things. I never walked away from it, once I became a pastor. But anybody who tells you they’ve never had a moment of questioning or a challenge in their life, they’re kidding themselves. 

We have six wonderful granddaughters. We have three children. But there was a grandson who was born to my daughter and he died at birth. We almost lost our daughter at the same time. And that was a very difficult period of time for us. It was a major challenge. How could this happen to us? We try to do everything that we can. 

The bottom line is not that it’s happening to us. It happens to so many. And why do we think that something can’t happen to us? But that’s even more when we’ve got to pull into our faith. Though there can be a crisis, but if we don’t trust in God what do we have left to trust in? So that’s what’s always pulled us through in the long run.

NBL: Why is having faith a valuable and virtuous approach to life?
 

DL: Believing in something more than yourself is probably the first thing I’d say. To me, it’s being able to recognize there’s something that brought us all together. Atheists and scientists, they’ll tell you that they have an answer for all of this. It’s got nothing to do with faith. They may possibly be right, who knows? We’ll find out some day. 

I do believe in God, I do believe in Christ, I do believe in the word. The thing is we’ve got to have something to hold on to. And whether man agrees to it or not, whether we understand it or not, a lot of the principles that are in the Bible, taught to us in the Bible, the stories, the struggles, the things that are overcome, a lot of that has become part of life. …

When we have faith and we’re trusting in God, and we’re reading what God is saying and God’s saying that we should take care of the poor, we should take care of the elderly and the widow and the children, that we should care for others more than we care for ourselves. It’s not that God doesn’t want us to care for ourselves, but God wants us to care for each other. 

If you would do something for yourself, that’s what you should be doing for somebody else. So unless you come to understand those principles, you’ve got to find them somewhere, and we find them in faith. We have whatever we have and sometimes quite frankly we have what we’re seeing in the world right now.

NBL: How important is it for you to put your faith into practice and have a very hands-on faith?
 

DL: James is one of my favorite books (in the Bible) and chapter two is one of my favorite chapters. Quite frankly, it’s everything. It’s not about salvation. Ephesians says it’s not about works but by faith that we are saved. But if we are adherents of Christ, if we are believers of faith, then we are going to want to do action. …

A person of faith who really trusts God and really is growing is going to be someone who has to do action. Because it’s who we are. I want to help. How that help comes is in a variety of different ways. 

We could be helping one person, helping an elderly neighbor, or you could become a volunteer leader at a community food pantry. Or handing out clothes or doing drives for a variety of different efforts — suicide prevention, cancer awareness. You’re giving of yourself because that’s what Christ did and that’s what Christ tells us to do.

To me, one of the greatest lessons Christ ever gave was the night of the Last Supper. And when all the Apostles showed up the first thing Christ did was he brought out a pan of water. 

He took his robe off of his shoulders, he tied it around his waist, and he started to wash the apostles feet. This was the Lord, they’d seen him perform miracles, they’d seen him raise the dead, and feed thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes, and yet here he is washing their feet.

And the Apostles, Peter especially, said that he was the Lord and he didn’t have to do this, and Christ told them, if you don’t allow me to do this then you have no part in me. The greatest among you will be the servant of all. That’s what Christ said. “I did not come to be served, but to serve.” If Christ says that as an example, what more should we be doing? How can we do any less? We can’t.

Sean McCarthy is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to The New Bedford Light.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.