December 20, 2013
Chris Rainey is an IT business analyst at UPS and a part-time associate pastor at the Assemblies of God church in Teaneck. He has a master’s of divinity in Christian education from the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Miss. and a bachelor of arts degree in Bible from Central Bible College in Springfield, Miss. In 2011, he published his first book, “Touching Other Worlds: A Collection of Poems.” He’s coached Leonia soccer and softball, and is a Leonia Recreation Commissioner. He and his wife Marcia have lived in Leonia for 20 years. They have three daughters: Alyssa, Rachel and Ava.
Q: Where are you from?
A: I grew up in a small town in southern Illinois called Mount Vernon. It has a population of 17,000, with lots of farmers or descendants of farmers. I was an only child and lived with my mom and a great aunt and uncle, both of whom had lived through the Great Depression and contributed to my conservative financial outlook. We had a masonry business, which I had no aptitude for.
Q: What’s your ancestry?
A: I really don’t know. I was never asked that until I moved to New Jersey. My family has lived in America for so many generations we never talked about it. I’ve always thought of myself as an American.
Q: What were your interests in high school?
A: Although my father was a professional jazz trombonist, I never took up an instrument. I was a three-sport athlete (football, basketball and baseball) despite having a writer’s body.
Q: How did you meet your wife?
A: Marcia and I met in high school. After I graduated, I joined the Marines, following in the footsteps of the men in my family. Before I was deployed to Okinawa, we married, and she came overseas with me. We weren’t even 20! After I left the Marines, we both attended Central Bible College in Missouri, working and going to school full-time. We were so poor we qualified for every bit of financial aid, but that, along with straight A’s – we were very competitive with each other – enabled us to graduate debt-free.
Q: When did you consider the ministry?
A: Although I grew up in the Bible Belt, in a town with 140 Bible churches, my family didn’t attend church. I became a Christian in high school, and read the Bible a lot while I was in the Marines. That’s when I first felt a calling.
Q: What kind of church is an Assembly of God?
A: It’s an exuberant, dynamic, celebratory, interracial church that traces its roots to a revival held in 1906 on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. Today it’s the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination and the sixth largest Christian denomination. A recent Broadway musical, “Scandalous,” told the story of Aimee Semple McPherson, an early Pentecostal preacher. Her character was played by Leonia actress Carolee Carmello.
Q: Where did you hope to minister?
A: An urban area, preferably Chicago, since my town was already saturated with churches, but that didn’t work out. In 1993, I was recruited to take over a church in Fort Lee. My wife and I, and our infant daughter, headed east in a Ryder truck to our apartment in Cliffside Park. The rent was four times higher than our rental house in Missouri. Our church met every Sunday morning in Fort Lee’s Fire Hall No. 5 on Anderson Avenue. We shared the space with a synagogue.
Q: What were your first impressions of New Jersey?
A: Moving from a low cost-of-living area to the highest was a major financial challenge. Everything was difficult, from getting the bus to stop to parking on the street. I probably got 15 parking tickets the first six months because I forgot to move my car. Back in the Midwest, our favorite restaurants were “all you can eat buffets” for $7.99. They didn’t exist here. Still, we were amazed to live in such an historic area, to be able to see the George Washington Bridge and the Manhattan skyline from the Fort Lee Historic Park.
Q: What types of work have you done within your church?
A: Besides being a pastor at a struggling church for seven years, I’ve been a Bible institute instructor and did some short-term missionary work in Bulgaria and Mexico. To pay the bills, I took on a second job as a substitute teacher in Fort Lee. After our second daughter was born, I took on a full-time job as an IT trainer at UPS in Mahwah.
Q: What’s it like wearing UPS brown?
A: The only time I wore the brown uniform was for two months in 2010, when I was assigned to train seasonal workers on how to deliver packages in Manhattan during the holidays. Something about that brown uniform makes people open up to you – on the bus, at lunch, on the street. I found myself having conversations with so many people, from complete strangers to the seasonal workers, a number of whom had difficult life situations. It was hard work and eye-opening; it altered the way I saw life.
Q: Why did you move to Leonia?
A: We’d met some Leonia families through our church. We heard good things about the schools and liked the tree-lined streets. Our first home was on Christie Lane, behind the Gulf Station. After our third daughter was born, we moved to a larger home on Westview.
Q: When did you begin writing poetry?
A: I began journaling to deal with a trifecta of grief – the sudden death of my mother, the failure of the Fort Lee church, and 9/11. I started going to Flat Rock Brook, the nature sanctuary in Englewood, to pray. I always took a notebook and as I observed nature, I jotted down my thoughts, which evolved into poems. Writing there, under the canopy of trees, was a great catharsis for me.
Q: What do you most appreciate about Leonia?
A: It’s a nurturing literary community where you see others being creative and it emboldens and inspires you to try your hand at it. Leonia poet Fred Stern, who organizes the Poetry Forums at the Leonia Public Library, reached out to me and made me feel 10 feet tall when he encouraged me to participate in local poetry gatherings after he heard me during the open mic portion at a reading. I’m also grateful to Helene Marshall, Pam Malone and the late Lucy Rosenfeld for inviting me to read my poems at Leonia Reads. I was able to share the stage with some really wonderful Leonia poets.
Q: How did you get your poems in print?
A: I attended a talk on self publishing at the Leonia Public Library. After I’d written about 80 poems, I met with the speaker, Barry Sheinkopf of the Writing Center in Englewood Cliffs, and he guided me through the process. I’ve been hawking my book ever since. It’s all a part of “the writer’s struggle,” and very gratifying.
Q: Who’s your favorite poet or poem?
A: I love the poems of Robert Frost, who was also a nature poet. I’ve memorized his “Fire and Ice,” which touches on the power of love and hate. I’m moved by words, whether in a poem or the lyrics of a song.
Q: Do you have a favorite lyric?
A: “Tell me are you a Christian, child, and I said, ‘Man, I am tonight!'” That comes from Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis.” The irony is that he’s a Jew from Cleveland who “found his songs” and that lyric after a visit to Reverend Al Green’s gospel church in Memphis. I am amazed by some of the ways people get inspired creatively.
Q: How do you celebrate Christmas?
A: I’ve always felt you should be home for Christmas. Most years, we’ll attend the Christmas Eve service in Teaneck and then drive back home to Southern Illinois. We make a stop in Akron, Ohio where they have a wonderful German festival with German music, food, and handmade Christmas trinkets, as well as a seasonal ice skating rink. Whenever we go home, I look for houses for sale, thinking we might move back there some day.
Q: What keeps you in Leonia?
A: We’ve lived in Leonia 20 years, longer than we lived in our hometown. We’ve met lots of friends here. We’re still in awe that we live so close to New York City and among so many talented people. Most surprising is that so many who grew up here take it all for granted. Despite our initial culture shock, I’ve adapted to New Jersey, and find I actually thrive on the chaos, traffic, and cultural differences. My parents and grandparents have passed on and, at 49 I’m now the “patriarch” in the family! We’ve raised our three daughters here. Leonia is their home. After 20 years, I’ve come to realize that Leonia is home.
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