Pastor Evan Howard began his ministry at First Baptist Church in March 2022. He came to us after retiring from the Community Church of Providence, where he served for thirty-three years.

Evan grew up in western Washington state and spent his high school years on the island of Guam, where his father worked in the U.S. Navy civil service. While majoring in English and History at the University of Washington in Seattle, Evan participated in the music and youth programs of the First Baptist Church of Everett. Although he had been baptized as an infant in the Greek Orthodox Church, he experienced a call to the Christian ministry in this American Baptist congregation.

After receiving his Master of Divinity degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts, Evan was ordained as an American Baptist minister in Everett and began his pastoral career at the First Baptist Church of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in January 1981. While serving this multicultural urban congregation for nearly six years, he earned his Th.D. (Doctor of Theology) degree at Boston University, transitioning briefly into campus ministry at the University of Chicago while he wrote his dissertation.

In September 1988, he accepted a call to become pastor of the Central Baptist Church of Providence (now Community Church), located in a residential neighborhood near Brown University. In more than three decades of ministry together, he saw this aging congregation grow younger and become more multi-cultural and ecumenically diverse, with a contemporary worship style and spirited ministries to children, youth, and families.

Throughout his ministry, Evan has published articles and sermons in journals and newspapers such as the Christian Century, Expository Times, Pulpit Digest, Reformed Journal, The Boston Globe, The Providence Journal, and The Washington Post online. In 1991, Judson Press published his first nonfiction book, Rekindling the Hope of the Manger, followed by From Sacrifice to Celebration in 1993. Numerous Protestant churches across the country have used these books as resources for study and devotion during the Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter seasons. In 1995, Augsburg Fortress Press published Centered in God, a guide to spiritual growth based on the life of Jesus. The following year, Twenty-Third Publications issued a collection of Howard’s prayers called Suffering Loss, Seeking Healing. 

In 2007, Evan self-published his first novel, The Lost Epistle of Jesus, and this story about the “good thief” on the cross became an Amazon.com bestseller. Guideposts Books purchased the rights and published a revised version, The Galilean Secret, in 2010. As part of the marketing campaign, Evan was interviewed by several newspapers, as well as on radio, television, and podcasts. 

In addition, Publishers Weekly told the story of his self-publishing journey in their magazine. Several years later, his second novel, Take Back the Morning, won first place in the 2014 USA Best Books Awards in the Religious Fiction category. (For more information about Evan’s books, please visit: https://www.mysticrhode.com/books/).

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis of March 2020. Since in-person worship services were cancelled, Evan had to learn new ways to communicate with his congregation online. As he began to produce YouTube videos, he discovered a love of storytelling in a visual medium, especially the creation of music videos based on his original songs. Unexpectedly, this work grew into a new passion for filmmaking, and First Baptist has been very supportive. The premiere of Evan’s video BEFORE I SAID GOODBYE was held at the church in May 2022.

 Evan and his wife, Carol, have been married since September 1978 and are the parents of two grown sons, Evanjohn and Peter.