Pastor Burns Stanfield delivered his final sermon at Fourth Presbyterian Church on Sunday, November 8, and will retire after 35 years of pastoring.

Stanfield joined Fourth in 1991 and led the church in enriching the neighborhood through alms, the arts, and a robust array of youth programs. A lifelong musician, he began offering music lessons at the church around 1993. Over the next decade, this evolved into Fourth’s longstanding children’s and teens’ theater.

Stanfield first considered retirement after his wife, Lorraine, passed away in 2017. Following the pandemic, he saw a need for younger leadership and began transitioning his responsibilities to a co-pastor in 2023.

“I will seek to serve the community and my God for as long as I can, and I’m very much open to a new chapter,” he said. “I’m remarried. I live in a new area… My kids are grown up. My oldest is going to have a baby in March, so I’m going to be a grandpa. I didn’t know that when we were making these decisions, but I’m thrilled.”

Stanfield will also step down as the church’s music director and hand off responsibility for the children’s theatre. In his directorial finale, the Mainstage Theatre will put on a production of “Beauty and the Beast.”

Stanfield likened his time with the Mainstage Theatre to the closing act of the play “The Music Man.” 

“The conclusion of that show is the kids playing their musical instruments, and it’s supposed to be the gotcha moment when the whole town realizes that Harold Hill is a con man. Indeed, the music is terrible, but they’re watching their kids perform, and it doesn’t matter because they love their kids,” he said. 

“That moment doing that play and experiencing it, taught me, ‘oh, that’s us.’ Over and over again, there are 175 people in the sanctuary who adore their kids.”

Before his time at Fourth, Stanfield had never considered a future in South Boston. “The only time I came to South Boston was to play at The Channel, to play rock and roll at the club that used to be here,” he recalled

As a seminary student at Harvard in 1988, he was chosen to preach at his graduation service. In his sermon, he criticized resistance to Mayor Raymond Flynn’s integration of South Boston’s public housing. Stanfield said the idea that the neighborhood opposed integration outright was inaccurate and that he sought to shame the vocal minority and the media narrative they had fueled.

When he heard that Fourth, which to this day is located just outside the Old Colony Housing Project, was looking for a pastor, he sent them a copy of this sermon – one of his best, though the only one he had on hand, he said. The Session, the decision-making body of a Presbyterian church, shared Stanfield’s commitment to racial harmony.

“Lo and behold, that’s kind of where I ended up. I think that the work of bringing people together is a part of our church’s work,” he said. “Speaking theologically, it feels like, ‘be careful where you point your finger because God’s gonna send you there.’”

With his departure from Fourth, Stanfield said he could not say whether he had made the neighborhood a better place, but that he hoped to have been a witness to the power of bringing people from different walks of life into one loving community.

“God has put us in a great location for that. We’re right in the middle of a whole lot of different people,” he said.

Stanfield added that while he cannot be part of the church community for the next two years to give the new leadership room to establish itself, he plans to keep in touch as a friend.

“I can’t come in and do a baptism, but I can be involved in the neighborhood,” he explained. “I’ve learned a lot from this community, even as it’s changed. I hope they always look out for each other and they welcome all newcomers as much as they welcome me.”

Stanfield said he will continue his work with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and his advising of students at the Harvard Divinity School. He plans to spend the next few months visiting friends and family, making and performing music, and supporting small churches in developing strategies for creative worship.

“I would like to get better at taking the musical soul of Fourth Church around the country,” he said. “I’ve been booked to do something out in the Midwest next spring… That’s what I’m getting asked to do right out of the gate, and I’m happy to do that.”

Tim Hughes Williams will become Fourth’s acting pastor in January, while the Session selects Stanfield’s long-term successor over the next few months. 

To honor Stanfield as he departs, Fourth has created the “Stanfield Legacy Fund” to cover essential living and tuition costs for the church’s student interns. Donations can be made here and will be accepted on an ongoing basis.

Image via Fourth Presbyterian Church