The Deacon's Bench
As the gas and oil industry has brought jobs and environmental controversies to the region, it has also attracted thousands of workers, some uprooted from families far away, many others pulling long stressful shifts near their hometowns.
To bring them the Gospel, and help them support each other in following Jesus, a Catholic deacon has become the Pittsburgh-area chaplain of Oilfield Christian Fellowship. The ecumenical, strongly evangelical, group started with a single breakfast meeting 23 years ago in Texas, and has spread to six states and Canada.
Deacon Tom Lopus, who earns his living as senior vice president for oil and gas at Pardee Resources while serving at SS. John and Paul Parish in Franklin Park/Marshall Township, lived in Houston, Texas, when Oilfield Christian Fellowship had its first informal gathering in 1991. After returning to his native Pittsburgh in 2002, he was happy to help launch the fellowship here. Worker response to the group’s gatherings and devotional materials has been strong, he said.
“People just didn’t know there was a group like this within the industry that wanted to honor Christ and evangelize,” he said.
Oilfield Christian Fellowship is run by lay people who work in the industry, but its purpose is to promote Jesus, not fossil fuel extraction.
It holds gatherings at local industry events, including a recent breakfast meeting it co-sponsored at the Developing Unconventionals DUG East conference that drew more than 3,200 people to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The keynote speaker, Rich Weber, chairman and CEO of Penn Energy Resources, said that Jesus wants workers whose values include caring for the earth’s resources.
Oilfield Christian Fellowship, he said, promotes honesty, integrity safety, environmental stewardship, and operational excellence.
“The Lord had provided us great abundance, but the Lord expects us to be stewards,” he said.
He told the group that he was raised in a Christian home, but that his own faith took second place to his personal ambitions. By his mid-40s he was highly successful, but felt empty.
“If this is where you’re going, there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” he remembered thinking to himself. He began to read the Bible. Through it, he said, Jesus changed his life, and he realized that he had to tell others. The fellowship, he said, is a way for Christians to help each follow Jesus more faithfully.
“The body of Christ isn’t about a building,” he said. “It’s about people.”
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