Bruce Walter Felker

The Reverend Bruce Walter Felker died on September 17 due to complications from treatment for a recurrent cancer. Bruce was born on November 24, 1936 in Brighton, Michigan, the beloved only child of Ancil Owen and Grace Westphal Felker. He had an idyllic childhood in Northville, Michigan, playing on his high school football team and tuba in the marching band, in addition to serving as president of his senior class of 1954. He and his father built a small cottage by Huffman Lake in northern lower peninsular Michigan, and the family enjoyed many happy vacations there. Bruce went to Hillsdale College for two years, and then transferred to the University of Michigan to study political science and psychology. He pledged Delta Tau Delta fraternity, played bass in a jazz combo, and sang in the Gilbert & Sullivan society. Following graduation in 1958, he backpacked across Europe, once traveling up the Rhine River as a crew member on a tramp steamer shoveling coal to feed the boiler. He joined an ecumenical religious youth camp called Villaggio di Agape in the mountains of northern Italy. There, he worked, discussed, and prayed with youth from around the world, and in that community felt the powerful and loving presence of God reaching out to heal a wounded world. It confirmed his call to a life of service in the Methodist Church, and upon his return to the US, he enrolled in a Master of Divinity program at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. He took a year off from seminary studies to serve on the staff of the Wesley Foundation at Texas A&M University. During that time, he met Dorothy Beauchamp, and they married in 1961. Following a final year at Drew, Bruce took a job as the Wesley Foundation Director at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, far west Texas. Their first son, Ross, was born there in 1963. Bruce moved to the Wesley Foundation at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, and there son Greg joined the family in 1966. After a year serving a church in inner-city Detroit, Bruce took the helm of the Wesley Foundation at the Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo; son Wade completed the family in 1969. After a divorce in 1976, Bruce married Mildred Herring the following year. That marriage ended in divorce in 2001, and Bruce later found enduring love with Jeanie Powell, whom he married in 2004. The family moved from Michigan to Houston, Texas in 1973, where Bruce studied medical ethics at the Texas Medical Center's Institute for Religion. Following a brief career interval, he re-entered pastoral ministry in connection with the Texas Annual Conference. In a long career he served churches in Missouri City, Champions Forest / FM1960, Mont Belvieu, Beaumont, Klein, and Houston. In the late 1980s he studied for a Doctor of Ministry degree through his alma mater, Drew University Theological School, and completed this in 1991. Bruce's ministry was defined by an abiding commitment to the inclusion of all people, reconciling social and religious divisions, meeting the needs of the poor and hungry, pursuing justice, defending human rights, and consoling those suffering physical illness or spiritual desolation. In his early career in campus ministry, he worked with students in the peace and civil rights movements. In his pastoral ministry, he gave special emphasis to visitation and often spent evening and weekend time with hospitalized or housebound parishioners. His D. Min. thesis grew out of a grief-counseling program he developed with congregants at John Wesley United Methodist Church, where he had many close and rewarding friendships. At several churches he started community gardens to supply produce to local food banks, and he helped found an inter-faith network of congregations providing temporary housing for homeless families. With an ecumenical group of clergy and lay people, he helped to organize Northwest Assistance Ministries, which now serves over 129,000 people annually in the Klein and Kuykendahl areas. In Beaumont, he helped to bring together two congregations, one predominantly white and one predominantly black, to ensure a thriving integrated church. For years he worked with the United Methodist Committee on Relief to raise funds for community development projects around the world and, as his colorful Mayan woven stole displayed, he supported Fair Trade organizations like Pueblo-to-People. He worked with Amnesty International and was an activist committed to ending state-sponsored executions. He stood in solidarity with, and for equal treatment of, LGTBQ persons in the church and beyond. He recorded books for the blind. All his activism did not divert him, however, from a lifelong study of theology, and his sermons were invariably both thought-provoking and deeply scriptural. Bruce retired in 2001, but only became more active in serving community needs. He traveled internationally, undertaking mission or service trips to Bali, Indonesia (where he twice served a Protestant congregation), Bolivia (twice), Russia, Vietnam, and Israel / Palestine. He made his spiritual and community home at St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Houston's museum district. There, he worshipped faithfully, assisted in the Wednesday morning communion service, met with the Men's Bible Study group, and worked with children in the Rutabaga after-school program. He also tutored children in the MacGregor Elementary Mentor Program. In between various activities, he could be found in the youth center at St. Paul's, greeting passersby and practicing his Native American flute. He felt a supportive connection to the St. Paul's community and in return contributed his presence and energy. He likewise cherished connections with friends from John Wesley UMC and other churches he served over the years, as well as lay, clergy, and inter-faith colleagues with whom he had worked. As anyone who ever marveled at the range of maize-and-blue clothing and household objects that Bruce owned soon learned, he was an inordinately but good-naturedly proud alumnus of the University of Michigan. He spent post-retirement summers at the re-built family cottage on Huffman Lake near Vanderbilt, Michigan, and called it a "thin place" where, for him, the boundary between this world and Heaven was at its most permeable. He served as editor of the lake community newsletter and did volunteer work for water quality, river, and wetlands preservation with the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council. His fondest times were spent there with Jeanie and hosting visits from family and friends. His days were filled with boating, walking, reading, sharing conversation with friends who lived around the lake, and serenading the resident pair of loons with his flute. Bruce was known for his deep, booming voice, the twinkle in his eye, and his penchant for telling unintentionally puzzling jokes. He loved his family steadfastly, and leaves behind a beloved wife Jeanie, sons Ross, Greg, and Wade, and six grandchildren: Chris, Jenny, Kiana, Gavin, Sean, and Nolan. He will be memorialized at St. Paul's United Methodist Church on Saturday, October 12 at 5 p.m. (In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to one of the churches or charities listed below.) Bruce's earthly remains will rest in the memorial garden at Northville United Methodist Church in his hometown. Well done, good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:23). * Northwest Assistance Ministries http://www.namonline.org * St. Paul's United Methodist Church http://www.stpaulshouston.org/involved/giving.aspx * McCabe Roberts Ave. United Methodist Church, 1205 Roberts Ave, Beaumont, TX 77701 * The Wesley Foundation at the University of Michigan https://sites.google.com/site/umichwesley/about-us/support-us * Agape Ecumenical Center http://agapecentroecumenico.org/en/donations/ * Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, http://www.watershedcouncil.org/membership/