Growing in faith; First Congregational Church welcomes new minister.

Byline: Ellie Oleson

AUBURN -The town's oldest church parish welcomed the town's newest pastor last month.

The Rev. Brian M. Grover, 43, began his tenure at the First Congregational Church on June 1, becoming the 28th minister in a parish that goes back to 1776. He also is likely the first local pastor to be called to a religious career while serving as a field artillery officer in the deserts of Iraq.

His predecessor, the Rev. Kenneth E. Knox, served as minister at First Congregational for nearly 24 years before retiring in 2008. Since then, interim pastors have filled in.

Rev. Grover is a soft-spoken, intelligent man with a practical side that might best be explained by his choice of flowers.

"My favorite flowers are dandelions. I would say they are the most popular flower in America. How many mothers received a bouquet of dandelions on Mother's Day?" he asked.

Like the dandelion, Rev. Grover seems to flourish in whatever land God places him, from New Hampshire to Iraq. Although he had never been to Auburn, he said his arrival last month was a sort of homecoming, since he grew up in New England, in the tiny town of Errol, N.H., where his mother still lives with his brother.

Through his years in the military and the Midwest, he has kept in touch with his New Hampshire roots.

"I'm a Sox fan," he said, leaning against a Red Sox pillow on a chair in his office in the church rectory. A Ted Williams action figure decorates his bookcase. "I remember watching Carl Yastrzemski on television, though I've never been to Fenway Park."

Rev. Grover went to school in Bangor, Maine, and at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in history in 1989 from the University of New Hampshire.

He joined the U.S. Army and served for five years as a field artillery officer. He was serving in Iraq and Kuwait during the Gulf War's Operation Desert Storm when he was "called to ministry."

"I had been in the military for two years when I was in the desert in the middle of nowhere, in either Iraq or Kuwait, on March 2, 1991. I heard something that wasn't a sound and saw something that wasn't a light. I can't explain it any other way, but in that moment I knew without doubt that God is real," he said.

He had gone to a Congregational Church on Sundays growing up, but said, "I wasn't raised in any church, but there was only a Congregational and a Catholic church in our town."

While serving in the military, he said, "I liked our chaplain. We had...