Pastor Greg with wife Cheryl
Pastor Greg Thomas was called to the Cornerstone Baptist Church in March of 2009. He and his wife Cheryl moved to Danielson from Richmond VA after a three year sojourn that interrupted a life long love affair with New England and the Northeast. Greg jokes that its, “nice to be back where I know where every road goes and things make sense.”
Born in Putnam CT and raised in Norwich, Greg is very much the local boy, though his life’s experiences have taken him many places. A four-year hitch in the US Navy brought him to Little Creek VA where he spent three years as an electricians mate, repairing landing craft.
Upon being honorably discharged, Greg enrolled in collage at Eastern Connecticut State University where he was editor in chief of the school newspaper, The Campus Lantern. The paper was consistently ranked in the top 10% of all college newspapers in the country. He and a friend – Chip Vose – had the distinction of being the first students to have a show on the fledgling campus radio station, WECS. They also had the distinction of being the first students to be kicked off the air. “It is a long and humorous tale,” says Greg, “I’ll give you a teaser – it had something to do with the Falkland Islands War.” Through all of the extra-curricular fun, he still managed to score a 3.7 in his major, English Literature (along with a minor in Mass Communications).
Near the beginning of his third year, He met the love of his life, Cheryl, now his wife of 28 years. Though he was still in school at the time, she was already firmly ensconced in her career, working as an actuary for the Travelers Insurance Co. Cheryl was raised in Hudson, NY, a small city on the Hudson River about 30 miles south of Albany.
In short order, they started a family. First, Christopher, born in 1983, who is currently in the Navy serving as a search and rescue swimmer. He is 9 credits away from an associate’s degree in business and anticipates enrolling in Warrant Officers School. Chris is stationed in San Diego and most recently has been tasked with teaching other young Naval Personnel how to jump out of perfectly good helicopters into heavy seas.
Their son Timothy, born in 1985, attended Film School at Rockport College in Maine, a film industry sponsored school that both offers degree programs and trains professionals in the latest techniques and equipment. He is living in Lynchburg VA where is dabbles in Acrylics, painting surrealistic landscapes and abstracts. He continues to write screen plays and anticipates moving to LA where he can put his talents to good use.
Greg was their primary caregiver during the first years of their lives, but when they went off to school, so did he - again. Entering Seminary in 1991 at Andover Newton Theological School, he soon found himself being asked if he would consider a part time pastorate in Moosup, CT. In 1992 he was called to pastor Moosup Baptist Church.
Taking 2 courses a semester, pastoring a church and being home to greet the boys when they got off the bus proved to be very challenging. It also stretched out his seminary training over several years. “I was on the forever plan,” he jokes, “It was an open question what would happen first, the parusia (the time when Christ returns) or my graduation.”
In 1998 Greg graduated from Andover Newton, and was called to an interim position in Maine at the West Bowdoin Baptist Church. After two other interim positions and a short stint at First Baptist Church of Waterville, Cheryl was downsized from her position in Portland and had to take a job out of state. That led them to Virginia for three years. Greg and Cheryl felt as if they were living in exile. Not that VA wasn’t a nice place to live, it has its own charms, but it wasn’t New England.
“Most of the Baptist Churches in VA are very conservative,” said Greg, “There was almost no possibility for me to get a call there. So after three years, I called up the Area Minister in CT and asked her, ‘if I promise to be very good, can I come home?’” Greg received the church profile of the Cornerstone Baptist Church shortly after, and the rest, as they say, is history.