For the month of September, Pleasant Union Baptist Church will be celebrating the 46th anniversary of its pastor, the Rev. Vaurice Chambers.

Chambers has enjoyed his time at Pleasant Union, and he is grateful for the relationships he has built within his community and his congregation.

“God gives us a new family, and they have been beneficial to us, and I hope we have been beneficial to them,” Chambers said. “It’s the love that we have for the congregation and the relationships with those same people that has kept me around for many years.”

Chambers did not think that 46 years would come and go for him at the church, but he is now looking forward and hoping to spend five decades or more at the pulpit at Pleasant Union.

While he has spent most of his career in ministry at Pleasant Union, Chambers has been preaching since 1964.

He was inspired in a church, and it didn’t take much more to get him in front of a congregation.

“I found ministry when I was a musician for a church in Portsmouth,” Chambers said.

Not too long after he got his start, he heard whispers about an opening at the church, and his wife, Naomi, helped to get him there.

“I was informed that the church was vacant and they asked if my husband was available, and that is how he was introduced to Pleasant Union,” Naomi said.

“Through some finagling, some friends of my wife’s expressed a desire to have a pastor at Pleasant Union Baptist, and the rest is history,” Chambers said.

Though he has aged, Chambers still enjoys spreading the gospel and teaching his congregation, but his sermons look a little different than they did a few decades ago.

“It’s about the souls being saved. Now I’ve lost some of my fervor, and I mainly teach instead of the whooping preaching like in my younger days,” Chambers said.

Those same years, however, have given him wisdom.

“Experience has given him growth in ministry through years with people. He sees the need for the gospel for daily lives. He has geared sermons on how to have the abundant life that God promised,” Naomi said.

His wife, who is also his co-pastor, has been his greatest asset over the years. She has spent every Sunday listening to the sermons, and every Sunday she makes sure to pass along her own advice.

“She critiques me and doesn’t offend,” Chambers said. “She always tells me that maybe I shouldn’t have said something in that way.”

Her critiques always wait until Sunday, because she never wants to interfere with his sermon. Every Sunday she is hearing him preach something new.