Sharon Latour was walking down her street in Montgomery, Alabama in 2001 when she came upon a tiny clapboard Presbyterian church. She had already realized that her conservative Methodist church no longer fit, and she went inside and found a female pastor steeped in liberation theology. The next few years at that church helped Ms. Latour, who is the new pastor at Bolinas and Stinson Beach’s Presbyterian churches, radically shift her views about God and religion, and become a pastor. “I grew up real fast theologically,” she said. In Montgomery, where she was teaching leadership at an Air Force academy, she started a Sunday night jail ministry and became ordained as an elder in the church. Liberation theology let her “see God and God’s love for us more broadly. The really good news is that God loves you just as you are,” she said. Ms. Latour remained in the military until 2005, retiring as a lieutenant colonel after two decades. Her retirement benefits have allowed her to serve congregations for little to no pay. At age 50, she enrolled at San Francisco Theological Seminary, and after graduating she served as a pastor in Garberville, where she helped homeless and set up a food bank, and then in Arcata, where she established a program encouraging youth to go to college. A year ago she moved to San Rafael to help San Francisco Theological Seminary develop a strategic plan. As the temporary job wound down, she started filling in at the Stinson and Bolinas Presbyterian churches, where Pastor Bob Grove, who had served the congregations for the last 15 years, was retiring. She took the job in August. “What I truly love is that…I don’t have to teach them what community means. They already get it, each with their own flavor. That is a joy,” she said. Ms. Latour is already putting her socially conscious theology into practice; in Stinson Beach, she helped organize a fundraiser that raised $500 in a single weekend, to buy gifts for displaced children for the holidays. “The outpouring of love from community is just amazing,” she said.
The Stinson Beach Community Presbyterian Church will host a reception with tea, cookies and cake with Sharon Latour at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve.