After 43 years, Rev. Charles Coverdale steps down as senior pastor at First Baptist Church

First Baptist Church of Riverhead filled the sanctuary of its Northville Turnpike church Sunday for the Rev. Charles Coverdale’s final sermon as senior pastor, bringing to a close 43 years of leadership that shaped the congregation’s spiritual life and its civic footprint.

Parishioners, visiting clergy and community leaders gathered for the special service, marking the end of Coverdale’s tenure as senior pastor — a transition that church leaders said will continue next month, when Pastor Cynthia Liggon is installed as senior pastor on Feb. 21.

Coverdale’s message was drawn from the Gospel of Mark and centered on a single Aramaic word: “Ephphatha,” meaning “be opened.”

He used the passage as both farewell and charge, urging the church to stay open — to new ideas, to forgiveness, to those who have fallen short. “Don’t blackball people forever,” he said. “When God opens a door, no one should close it.”

Coverdale told worshippers that stepping down as senior pastor is not a goodbye. He said he plans to remain active in ministries he helped build, including the Family Community Life Center and programs serving youth and seniors.

Liggon and Pastor Montez Johnson joined Coverdale in conducting the service. Liggon, who has served in an administrative leadership role and has been described as Coverdale’s “right hand” in recent years, spoke of his continued influence.

“Our First Lady, Mrs. Coverdale, said to us a long time ago, ‘He’s going to say what he wants to say, when he wants to say it, and how he’s going to say it. He will not be muzzled,’” Liggon said. “And in the years to come, he will not be muzzled, as long as he has breath in his body.”

Speakers reflected on Coverdale’s decades of service and the institutions that grew under his watch, including the Open Arms Care Center, the Family Community Life Center, scholarship funds and outreach programs that expanded the church’s role beyond its walls.

A letter from a Lincoln University student whose education is supported by a scholarship in Coverdale’s name was read aloud, praising his example and calling him “a pastor to the greater community.” Members of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, of which Coverdale is a member, presented a $5,000 donation to the church’s scholarship fund in his honor.

Coverdale, who was raised in the South Bronx, is a graduate of Lincoln University and Harvard Business School. He worked in the corporate world and as a college professor before being called as a pastor. He came to First Baptist Church of Riverhead in 1982. His ministry has extended far beyond the walls of his church. Among other things, he founded Open Arms Care Center and the Family Community Life Center, a 38-year project that is about to come to fruition, and he has served as chaplain in the Suffolk County Corrections Division.

On Sunday, Coverdale spoke of his roots in a Bronx community that people often dismissed as a bad place — a slum — but that he remembered as a place filled with neighbors who supported and encouraged him.

“Keep going the way of your path,” he recalled being told. “Follow what God wants you to do, become something God wants. Stay on the path of righteousness.”

Coverdale credited the church with giving him his life’s direction, even in spite of people who “tried to crush him,” telling him, “You’re from the South Bronx, you’ll never be anybody.”

With faith and perseverance, he proved them wrong.

Now, as he steps aside from the senior pastor role, the man who urged the church to “be opened” is asking it to keep its doors and its heart that way in its next chapter.