In the Land of Joseph Smith
Most of the people in Pima, Arizona, already claim a church. The Mormon Church.
Steve Dennie
July 1989
Let's begin by affirming that M. E. and Francis Burkett are very special people.
They met at Brown Corners UB in Clare, Mich. That was her home church, and his first pastorate. The wedding occurred in 1943. Since then, they've really been around.
In 1951, they went to Sierra Leone for two three-year terms. They spent the 1960s pastoring in the States and serving with the United Methodist Redbird Mission in Kentucky. In 1971 they returned to Sierra Leone, where M. E. took Rev. Jerry Datema's place as Field Secretary.
After that came pastorates in the Missionary Church, plus three years at the UB Laurel Mission in Kentucky.
Along the way, M. E. and Francis raised quite a family. Dave, a former missionary in Sierra Leone, pastors Colwood UB in Caro, Mich. Stephen, a former pastor in Michigan Conference, lives in Safford, Ariz., and is active in ministry there. Mark is an Army doctor in Sierra Vista, Ariz. And Phil, the youngest, is a UB missionary in Macau.
Very special people, indeed.
Now, how did M. E. and Francis Burkett end up in the little Arizona town of Pima, population 1500?
It started with Steve Burkett, sort of. Or maybe Mark. Steve, his wife Karen, and their family visited Mark in Tucson, where he was doing his pre-med work at the University of Arizona. They liked Arizona, and ended up staying.
One day Steve, a motorcycle enthusiast, visited a big dealership in Safford which attracts people from all over. He not only bought a motorcycle, but landed a job there. He and his family settled into a home in Safford.
M. E. and Francis, then pastoring for the Missionary Church in Michigan, came for a visit. After they returned to Michigan, God started speaking to M. E.
"One night l just couldn't sleep," he recalls. "The whole thing came to me in detail. I was to start a church in Pima, which would be called Open Bible Fellowship. I have never felt God's leading more clearly than I did that night."
They called Steve. Could they park their motor home in his yard and live there until they found a home? Steve checked with his landlord. It was okay. So they sold all their household goods, except for a few items they could fit in the motor home, and journeyed west.
About 20,000 people inhabit Graham County. Ninety percent call themselves Mormons. All of them need Christ. The valley is an agricultural area. The main crop is cotton, with some alfalfa, and a little wheat and barley. And a few pecan orchards.
Three towns lie close together.
The smallest is Pima. It is 150 miles from the nearest US church, in Fountain Hills. A few miles east is Thatcher, home of Arizona's first Wal-Mart. Three thousand people live there. About 1000 students, including a large number of Polynesians, attend Mormon-dominated Eastern Arizona College in Thatcher.
A tad further east is Safford, population 7500. Francis Burkett, a Licensed Practical Nurse, works at the hospital there. And for the past three years, M. E. has ministered there at the Federal Correctional Institute, a minimum security prison. The prison, located on the outskirts of town, has about 400 inmates, most of them serving time for white collar crimes, like fraud. John Erlichman of Watergate notoriety served time there.
M. E. says, "I've never had such an international ministry as I've had at the prison. There are people from the Orient, Arab countries, Africa, India, Mexico, every state. I've had a chance to minister to them all."
But that's kind of on the side. He went to Arizona to start a church.
The Burketts arrived in October 1985 on a Wednesday, and held a service at Steve's house that Sunday. They lived in the motor home for six weeks before finding a home of their own in Pima.
Members of a little Baptist church in Pima asked Burkett to become their pastor. An official from Phoenix met him at a restaurant to talk about it.
"We want you to join the church," he said. "The only thing is, you'll have to be baptized again."
"No," Burkett replied. "I've been baptized just like you baptize."
"Well," the man said, "the local church can decide on that. But you would have to be ordained over."
'No, I've been ordained, just like you ordain."
The official sat there a little bit. Then he said, "Oh, there are ways of getting around that, too."
But Burkett wasn't interested, at least not then. He had already rented a building for a church of his own.
It was an abandoned drugstore, owned by a Mormon family who used to run it. The Burketts cleaned it up and painted it, got it looking real nice. Maybe too nice. About three months later, the owner got a better rent offer from someone else.
"He said we would have to come up with more money to rent it, plus sign a two-year lease. We might have managed the higher rent, but I didn't want the two-year lease." So he checked with the owners of a little restaurant that had been closed for 12 years. Actually, he had contacted them before securing the drugstore, but they weren't interested in renting the place. Now, he went back to them and explained the situation.
"Give me until this afternoon to think about it," the owner said.
Burkett returned that afternoon. The guy said, "Okay." That was three years ago. The infant UB congregation rented the building for a few months, then bought it.
"We haven't missed a payment yet," Burkett says.
The first service of Open Bible Fellowship occurred in that drugstore on Palm Sunday of 1986. Eleven people attended, and 18 came the next week. The highest attendance so far has been 39. The average runs around 22.
The pastor's Sunday morning begins at the prison. He arrives there at 7:30, meets with the church council at 8:00, and conducts the worship service 8:30 to 9:30, speaking to an average of 40 inmates. Then he drives back to Pima for the 10:15 service.
M. E. Burkett is a man of wisdom who understands people very well, and is extremely interested in people. And he possesses an outstanding memory for detail. He can tell all about everyone in all the houses in his part of town. He knows where people are from, their religious background, number of kids, ages, interests, birthdays, occupations, and much more. He is obviously a people person who takes a sincere interest in others.
"Our ministry has grown through personal contacts," he says. "After arriving, I preached wherever I could. I got to know people that way. We started out from scratch getting acquainted with people in the area, going out of our way to do things for them."
Nobody who attends Open Bible Fellowship is actually from Arizona. They all come from elsewhere, like Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan. Most have a Catholic background; some are Baptist, Methodist, or Lutheran. There is an Indian family and a Mexican family.
"We did have a lady with Mormon background, but she moved away."
The Open Bible Fellowship building is basically divided in half. A squarish sanctuary occupies the former dining area in front. The kitchen area is used for fellowship and Sunday school.
A few months ago, they enclosed the rickety back porch and built doorways into the two restrooms attached to the back of the building, which previously had outside entrances. Another little restroom, built for the restaurant workers, opens off the kitchen. But Pima charges an extra sewer fee if you have more than two restrooms.
"We could save two dollars a month by just turning everything off, so we did," Burkett says. "We've had to watch every penny to make sure ends meet."
The furnishings at Open Bible Fellowship win the prize for creativity and uniqueness.
- The communion table is an old display counter from the drugstore.
- The cloth draped behind the communion table once adorned the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, the one with the fire. He bought it from some Mormons.
- The sanctuary carpet came from a Mormon church in Safford.
- A man who is legally blind made the altar rails.
- A housing complex in Thatcher yielded the refrigerator and stove.
- A Mormon family who were tearing down an old house supplied the cupboards and sink.
- They received a typewriter and mimeograph from the Lake Havasu UB church.
- A couple tables were given by Fountain Hills UB.
- The tract and bulletin rack are from a Nazarene church in Tucson.
- Some songbooks are compliments of Colwood UB in Caro, Mich.
- Michigan Conference helped buy the piano.
But the centerpiece, the most interesting item in the church, is the pulpit. It used to be a trash bin at Jack in the Box, a fast-food chain, the place where people inserted their empty wrappers, cups, and Styrofoam containers. Makes a great pulpit.
A guy who had been storing things in the drugstore hauled out everything except the trash bin.
"Why did you leave this here?" Burkett asked him.
"It was too heavy for me to move," the man replied.
"Would you be willing to sell it?"
"Sure."
"How much?"
"Fifty dollars."
"That's way too much," Burkett told him.
"Well, how much would you give?"
"I'll give you $15."
He said, "All right, take it."
If you rub your hand over the wood-grain contact paper on the side, you can feel the indented words "Thank You" underneath.
"It's a heavy thing," Burkett says. "You can pound on it all you want, and it won't jump around."
The Sunday school consists of four classes. One meets in the sanctuary, one in the kitchen, and one (taught by Francis) in the enclosed porch. The youth class--get this--meets in the Burketts' van parked under a shade tree out back. The youth sit in the van while Burkett stands outside, teaching them.
As with everything else, they make do with what's available.
The Mormons have 1700 constituent families in the Pima area. They hold three Sunday services, each three hours long with a half-hour in between: 8:00 to 11:00,11:30 to 2:30, and 3:00 to 6:00.
M. E. observes, "They're good neighbors, and will do anything for you. But their religion is based on works. If you go into their church, they'll go way out of their way to be friendly. It's almost unbelievable how they show you concern. But that drops off later. They only treat newcomers that way.
"That first Christmas, a man who lives down the street and used to be a Mormon bishop sent us a Book of Mormon. He told us, 'If you live in a Mormon community, you should know what they teach.' But you can't learn much of what they teach from the Book of Mormon. In fact, the majority of their own people don't know what they teach."
The level of commitment to Mormonism varies, as it does among Christians.
Many contacts for the church come through Francis at the hospital. She met a man in the hospital who didn't have a church, so M. F. began calling on him. Before dying, the man told his children he wanted M. E. to preach his funeral.
"His children had married into Mormonism and wanted to hold the funeral in the Mormon church. They asked the bishop if I could do the funeral there, and he said, 'Sure.' So I preached a funeral in the Mormon church."
A Mormon funeral will last up to two hours. "Basically, the family handles the funeral, and a family member almost always does the preaching," Burkett explains. "The longest part is the eulogy, which includes a long genealogy. The eulogy alone can last as long as an entire Protestant service."
The Mormon predominance makes Pima a sizable mission field, with a much greater percentage of nonChristians than most places. But though the fields are large, the harvest isn't very white. The doors of Mormon homes, even of nominal, non-practicing Mormons, are pretty much closed. But those people still need Christ, and Christians should be doing something to reach them.
"I talk to the Mormons as well as anybody," Burkett says. "But it's very unusual for a Mormon to go to another church, even if he doesn't even attend the Mormon church."
Nevertheless, he and Francis are there, beacons for Christ in the darkness among people who think they live in the light.
Not many people would venture, late in life, into a place like Pima. The barriers are formidable--a tiny Christian community, minimal financial support, and tightly closed doors.
But none of this seems to matter to the Burketts. They are where they feel the Lord wants them. And they very clearly enjoy what they're doing.
Stephen Burkett has since passed away. As of 2005, Dave had returned to the pastorate after several terms as fulltime superintendent in Michigan Conference; Phil was Minister of Music at College Park UB Church in Huntington, Ind.; and Mark was a doctor in Fort Wayne, Ind. M. E. and Francis moved back to the east, where they served in several more pastoral roles, until finally retiring to Florida in 2004.
Open Bible Fellowship continues doing well. It is now a predominantly Hispanic, but English-speaking, church of about 200 people.
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