Young shepherd: Down-to-earth scholar will lead Bellevue church

The new senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue looks as if the title "junior" might fit him better.

The Rev. Dr. Scott Dudley, who comes to Bellevue by way of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Silicon Valley, is, at 41, one of the youngest pastors of a large Presbyterian church in the country.

A lover of Shakespeare who earned a Ph.D. in English literature from Stanford University, Dudley is in his first week on the job here and has not yet found time to move into his office — the bookshelves are almost as bare as the stark, white walls.

Tomorrow, his first sermon will ask, "What is faith?" Dudley jokes that he's worried about what will happen before he delivers the sermon. As the congregation files into the pews, many members of the congregation will be getting their first glimpse of the new pastor.

"I hope nobody asks, 'Where's the senior pastor? What's the kid doing here?' " he said. "I'm unusually young for this job."

Of the 167 candidates the church's search committee considered, Dudley was also the most qualified by far, said Gary King, who chaired the committee. Dudley grew up in Richland and graduated from the University of Washington. He has a fondness for wearing polo shirts and says things like, "That pumps me up" and "I love Jesus Christ, and I love Shakespeare."

Dudley's mix of scholarship and down-to-earth attitude won the search committee over the first time members heard him preach. He made the stories of Herod's feast and Jesus' feeding of 5,000 people "come alive," King said. "My mind was made up."

Under the Rev. Richard Leon, First Presbyterian grew in recent years with the rest of the Eastside. The congregation swelled to about 2,700, making it the second-largest of the 63 churches in the Presbytery of Seattle. The church, having expanded from 30,000 square feet to 105,000, has a large, beautiful sanctuary, a music wing, a gymnasium and a parking lot large enough that "you could land a plane," Dudley said.

Leon retired in May 2001. King said the congregation wanted his replacement to be "a world-class preacher," a skilled teacher who had experience in a large church and who would make a nice fit theologically.

Dudley seems made for the role. He went to Princeton Theological Seminary, as have First Presbyterian's three previous senior pastors. He taught at Stanford and in his free time led Bible studies for students at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, which has 5,000 congregants. For the past year and a half, he was also the church's primary preacher.

"He's able to connect to people on their level, no matter who they are," King said, "but he's also very intelligent. It's an unusual combination."

"Still, every time I look at him I think, 'I have two children older than you are.' "

Dudley doesn't have any plans to steer the church in a new direction. It would be presumptuous, he said, to walk into a successful church and say, "This is how you need to do things."

But he believes that with its resources — a large congregation and a decent budget — First Presbyterian could become "a beacon of hope for the Eastside." He wants to see more efforts to help the homeless and reach out to disillusioned dot-commers.

"I'm very interested in people doing the dot-com thing," he said. "They get in their 40s and 50s and ask, 'Is this it?' They realize there's more to life than being a lawyer. You weren't designed by God to create a computer program."

In Silicon Valley, he watched software designers and entrepreneurs devote their lives to businesses that evaporated when the technology bubble burst. The purpose of life, he believes, is to know God and build God's kingdom.

"You start by loving people," he said. "By healing their pains and hearing their problems. It's really true: God loves us, regardless of what we've done or haven't done. And in a culture like ours that measures everyone on performance, that's good news."