By Jim Mayfield | For the Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — In her last sermon just days before an embolism lifted her away from this world and the small congregation at First Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Ann Noland preached about “an everlasting instance.”
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In a voice that was at once strong but soft at the edges, she declared the promise and hope of Jesus Christ and those moments where “even the unforgettable seems to fade away” in the light of something bigger. Something she saw. Something she knew. Something she determined to believe in.
“She was an intentional optimist,” said the Rev. Marcus Dennis, who planted a Friends Church just down the street from First Presbyterian in February 2018 and became fast friends with Noland.
Along with his church, Dennis established a chapter of Brianna’s Hope, a faith-based, participant-driven addiction recovery organization that met weekly at First Presbyterian, a group Nolan embraced whole-heartedly.
“She was one of the strongest members of the Brianna’s Hope team,” Dennis said. “She believed in it and re-routed lives. She was knee-deep into it. She attended every meeting and ended every evening with a prayer that was a gripper.”
She was in attendance at the group’s weekly meeting the night before she died on Nov. 27 at age 65.
Dennis remembered Noland’s intentional interaction with one participant who was suicidal, addictive and spoke in monosyllabic sentences. That person’s life was changed and “re-routed” by Noland’s optimism and human touch, he said.
“She was so powerful,” Dennis said. “You would have to be there to see it in the first person to understand.”
A native of Anderson, Noland graduated from Anderson High School in 1972 and attended Purdue University. She married, raised four children and worked as a medical technician full time at St. John’s Medical Center in Anderson.
Then she received the call.
“She always put her family first,” said Purdue classmate Susie Highley. “But she always wanted to do more.”
And she did, Highley said.
With a family and a career, Noland began the rigorous commute from Anderson to Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis to pursue her calling and course work, graduating in 2006.
“It takes a lot of guts to change careers working full time with a family and making that commute,” Highley said.
Despite her commitments, she calmly went about the business of following the call.
It would be 10 years before she got her church, but it was another example of her intentional optimism that finally put her in the pulpit.
“It was interesting when we were looking for a pastor,” said longtime church member Dennis Whitson. “She bypassed the process and dropped her resume off at the church office.”
Electing to forego usual church protocol and bureaucracy was a move that paid off, and in 2016 Noland became the church’s 43rd pastor.
“She was extremely dedicated,” Whitson said. “She would show up for everything, and she had a very calming spirit. She was also very conscious that our church had a history and did a good job of understanding what our history was.
“She was — in a small church — the centerpiece,” Whitson said.
Trying to do more while staying aligned with church history and its founding mission can be a fine line to tread, but Noland did that almost effortlessly, leaders said. It was a skill that will be missed.
“It is a terrible blow,” said Tom Bloodgood of Noland’s passing. He and his wife, Carole, are among the most long-standing of the current church congregation.
Noland’s openness and warm, caring personality brought the church together, he said.
As did her creative bent.
She was working on a Christmas cantata to be presented at the church for the Christmas holidays, but that along with her intentional optimism, open heart and kindness was taken before it could be presented.
“She was always kind and unselfish,” Highley said. “But she’s left a great legacy with her children. They’re doing the same thing in Anderson.”
Noland will likely be the last regular pastor in First Presbyterian’s 164-year history. Declining numbers matched against the financial realities of maintaining a small church may well force it to close sometime next year, church leaders said.
And as the church looks to an uncertain future in the year ahead, it grapples with the large void left by Noland’s passing.
But as Noland told her congregation just before she left, there is always hope.
And the small but dedicated congregation of Greenfield First Presbyterian Church can hope in its pastor’s own discovery of “an everlasting instance.”
