Beloved pastor stepping down

Frank Brougher went on to pastorships in Spokane, Wash., and Des Moines, Wash., before church officials back in Glendale began to reach out to him to return to First Baptist as associate pastor alongside his aging father.

“It’s been a very pleasant surprise that this is the last church of my career,” Frank Brougher said. “I really thought that I would remain as I grew up as ‘Dr. Brougher’s son.’ But that hasn’t been it. And there is a really difference in my theology and my approach.”

And Glendale congregants saw it fitting for him to be the one to guide the church as the elder Brougher neared the end of his career.

“It was very important and essential that he be the one to be here,” said congregant Darcie Goyer, a member of the church for more than 40 years. “He had great knowledge and background and great familiarity with this church. He was the necessary one to come in and step in when he did.”

Frank Brougher will leave the church in the hands of Senior Pastor Charles Updike, who came to the church from Maryland in August 2007.

Frank Brougher will spend his retirement in a family home in Seaside Oregon.

“We are going to miss him a lot,” Brougher’s older sister Betty Dieudonne said. “But I am very happy for him also. If he has as many good feelings about his retirement as I have about mine, I will be very, very happy for him.”