Aila Boyd
aboyd@mainstreetnewspapers.com
After more than three decades in ministry — including the founding of CommUNITY Church in 2005 — Pastor Thomas McCracken is stepping into retirement, reflecting on a career defined less by buildings or attendance numbers and more by community engagement, service and presence during moments of crisis.
“As I reflect on my retirement, the moments that stand out most are the ones when the church became exactly what it was meant to be — a conduit of hope, grace and mercy,” McCracken said.
One of the most defining seasons of his ministry came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when in person worship was halted statewide. Rather than closing its doors, CommUNITY Church opened its campus for weekly outdoor services. McCracken preached from the church roof as congregants gathered in the parking lot and lawn, sitting in chairs, spreading blankets and listening from their cars.
“That Easter became the largest Easter attendance in our history,” he said. “In a time marked by fear, division and isolation, CommUNITY Church became a safe place for people to land.”
That same period also saw the church take worship into the community, holding services in the parking lots of local restaurants struggling under pandemic restrictions. Offerings collected during those services went directly to restaurant staff, with some businesses reporting record sales days.
“We hung a banner on the church that read, ‘The church has left the building,’” McCracken said. “When it mattered most, the church showed up.”
Those efforts earned front-page coverage in The Roanoke Times, which dubbed CommUNITY “The Traveling Church of the Pandemic,” and recognition in the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia publication The Proclaimer.
Founded in July 2005, CommUNITY Church was built with a clear mission, McCracken said — to actively engage the surrounding community rather than wait for people to come through its doors.
“When Allison Parker and Adam Ward were tragically shot on air in 2015, we gathered outside the WDBJ7 offices to pray,” he said. “When Hurricane Harvey devastated Texas, we delivered 2,000 new bikes to public school children who had lost everything.”
The church also became deeply involved in anti-bullying initiatives, work that contributed to McCracken’s election to the Roanoke County School Board in 2015 and later helped support legislation in Virginia making bullying a crime.
“My vision was realized not in buildings or numbers,” he said, “but in the way this church consistently invested in people.”
McCracken’s leadership style was shaped in part by 14 years of military service, where he learned the importance of teamwork, discipline and shared mission.
“In the church, no one outranks anyone else,” he said. “People are volunteers, not subordinates — and that makes all the difference.”
He also balanced pastoral work with careers in education and higher learning, refusing a church salary in the early years and instead teaching in Salem and Roanoke public schools so church funds could be directed toward community outreach.
“Being in the schools every day gave me a front-row seat to the struggles people were facing,” he said. “It kept the church grounded in real life.”
Family support, McCracken said, was essential throughout his ministry, though it came with sacrifices. His wife, Dr. Laurie McCracken, served in numerous leadership roles within the church while supporting him through public criticism, threats and long absences from family life.
“This transition is also about health,” McCracken said, citing a traumatic brain injury sustained during military service that led doctors to recommend retirement. “Caring for one another is just as much a calling as caring for a congregation.”
In retirement, McCracken plans to continue working on a new book, advocating for the Bushman Act — legislation sponsored by Sen. Bill Stanley — and serving his second term on the Virginia-Israel Advisory Board. He has also been named pastor emeritus by CommUNITY Church.
“I will not stop serving my God,” he said. “I’m just changing how I do it.”
As he looks ahead, McCracken offered advice to younger pastors entering ministry.
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” he said, quoting Theodore Roosevelt. “Ministry doesn’t stop when the building closes. In many ways, that’s when it begins.”