“I came originally as the associate pastor and my wife was the organist,” he said. “I had just been ordained as a minister and our son MacKenzie was just 9 months old when we got the call to come to Houlton. At first, we weren’t interested. We were both thinking something more suburban was for us.”
The couple came to Houlton to visit the church in February, 1990 during a frigid cold spell and were overwhelmed by the weather.
“It never got above eight degrees,” Melanie recalled.
This photo shows Pastor Randall and Melanie Burns as they looked when Randall became the pastor at Military Street Baptist Church.
(Contributed photo)
“The pilot had to help her off the plane into the terminal,” Randall added. “And we saw moose crossing signs from Presque Isle down. We looked at each other and thought ‘what are we doing?’ Neither of us had been to Maine, so we thought we would come for the visit.”
Randall was born and raised in the tiny town of Armour, South Dakota, but was raised in the more suburban area of Mitchell, South Dakota. Melanie was born and raised in San Diego, California.
After that visit, the couple returned to Philadelphia to finish his senior year of college. He recalls the moment when God stepped in.
“God reminded me that I told him I would go anywhere and I’ll do anything,” Randall recalled. “God wanted me to come to Houlton.”
“We could tell the congregation was truly wanting to move ahead,” Randall said. “The church, at that point, was in decline and they knew unless something dramatic happened, there was a chance it could die.”
Randall got his start on the path to ministry during his junior year at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where he was majoring in trumpet performance with a voice minor.
“I discovered a relationship with Christ my junior year,” he said. “All of the playing (musically) that used to be just for me, turns out God had plans for.”
He began traveling with the Continental Singers Group, a Christian ministry team, that toured the globe using music as its method of communicating the word of God. He met Melanie while playing in the group, and while dating was not permitted while on tour, the two struck up a relationship as soon as that tour ended.
The couple married in June 1986 and moved to San Diego, where he played trumpet professionally and did some teaching. He took seminary classes, which affirmed his yearning to continue his theological studies. Burns became employed at the First Baptist Church in San Diego, where he learned first-hand knowledge of ministry.
The couple moved to Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, where they spent three years before coming to Houlton in 1991.
Military Street Baptist Church has gone through a transformation during the Burnses tenure. They opened a brand-new church on top of Drakes Hill two years ago, replacing an aging structure on Military Street, near Monument Park. And in May, 2017, the church celebrates its 150th anniversary.
So what does the future hold for the couple?
“Only God knows,” Randall said. “I am really hoping the best years of this church are still ahead.”
