Sunday,
February 28, 1999
Rev. James
A.Todhunter
"Called
To Journey In The Spirit"
GENESIS 12:1-9, JOHN 3:1-8
On March 21st our congregation will be asked to vote on an interim staffing plan. Two Sundays ago we welcomed the Rev. Dale Ostrander to our pulpit, and last weekend, the Rev. Linda Carder visited, met widely in the congregation, and spoke eloquently in worship. The story of how we came to consider this plan is very interesting and unusual. And frankly, if ever there was a time in which I believe God has been watching over us and guiding our deliberations, I believe it has been so over the last few months.
So what I would like to do is share this narrative with you and close with some observations. At the time of Joey Noble’s death and Ruth Grace Crutchley’s departure last October, I turned to the Rev. Roy Oswald of the Alban Institute for guidance. Roy has been working with our congregation since the mid-eighties and is regarded as one of the nation’s top church consultants. Shirley Coll, Kris Glasco and I met regularly with him. One of the tasks before us was to look at our short-term and long-term staffing needs. As an expert on multiple-staff churches, Roy had invaluable advice. It seemed to me that our task was to both take care of our immediate congregational needs and also look to the future. For future staffing, we had a wealth of input from the congregation already - the self-study results, and particularly the report of the Children and Youth Task Force. What appealed to me was the idea of a staffing plan that would include a full-time minister for youth and young adults, and a part-time director of children’s programming (mainly church school). Roy strongly affirmed this model for us. But he also made a convincing case for creating a part-time position to develop program for senior citizens. In fact, he had just come from a congregation in Florida he had been working with that had such a program in place. Not a minister to the elderly, or parish visitor, but a position that devoted staff energies to creating a variety of opportunities to meet the special needs of folks through the spectrum of those recently retired, to those facing the end of life. Such a position would not put people in boxes, but maximize the opportunities for inter-generational contacts as well. In one church, for example, every homebound person got at least one weekly visit from another member. Well, we really got excited about that. And the whole new model.
Now, of course, just because Shirley and I are excited about something doesn’t mean it automatically happens, especially at CCC! It is just the first step in a process. The next step was to share these thoughts with the executive council, which is what I did in December. I would have to say that the response was mixed. On the one hand, there was general appreciation for the proposed plan. But there were valid concerns raised. The staff developer for senior programming seemed to be a winner. In regard to children and youth, some on the council liked the approach of calling a full-time youth minister. Others raised the question of why not, instead, call a full-time children’s minister and part-time youth person, which of course is another very legitimate way of allocating resources. There were other concerns. Our self-study and Children and Youth Task Force reports were clearly leading us in some very appealing directions, but did we know enough to lock ourselves into such a staffing pattern now? Also, there was the daunting prospect of conducting a national search for a new minister, a process that takes a least a year and requires tremendous energy. And, what sort of energy would we then have available for a capital campaign and building program? The executive council directed the personnel committee to look at possible new job descriptions, but everybody seemed exhausted. I came away from that meeting feeling pretty glum and not quite sure where to turn. And of course, then Christmas was soon upon us.
Then came the first of what I regard as divine interventions in human form. For many years the Rev. Jean Alexander was pastor at the Bethesda United Church of Christ. Several years ago she was called to be Conference Minister and Executive in Maine. For a number of years she and Shirley Coll and Joey were in a women’s clergy support group here. Jean happened to be in town before Christmas and called Shirley to see how she and CCC were doing. Shirley updated her. Then Jean said something like this. "Why don’t you consider a longer-term interim position, to give you the chance to explore new programming without getting locked into anything permanently. Get someone who can help you develop these new ministries, who also understands congregations in grief and transition. The impact of loss on your church will be felt for at least three, maybe five years. In fact, why don’t you call Linda Carder on the Iowa Conference Staff? She may be interested is moving back to this area."
Shirley conveyed this conversation to me. I immediately asked, "Who is Linda Carder?" When told that Linda Carder used to be named Linda Stoerkle, I immediately knew. I remembered her from her Westmoreland Church days, in particular, our co-leadership of a two-week church trip to Honduras. Interestingly enough, in a recent conversation with the UCC headquarters about possible youth ministers, the person I spoke with had said, "Of course, if you could get Linda Carder, she is the best there is in the UCC. But I think she is pretty settled in Iowa." Never having heard of Linda Carder, I didn’t pursue it. Shirley also reminded me that Linda had been a part of that women’s clergy support group with Joey.
Well, I was on the phone with Linda immediately. A little surprised by all this, nonetheless she said, "Sure, I’ll think about this. As a matter of fact, I will be in the Washington area next week." We are talking about the week before Christmas. So I talked to our moderator, Terry, and we scrambled around to pull together an early morning meeting of the executive council and some folks interested in children and youth to meet with Linda. I don’t know if you call this good process or bad process, but, hey, if you have an opportunity, seize it, is what I say.
Now, meanwhile, I had been exploring the possibility of ministry to seniors. The executive council had asked me to put together a job description for this position. I hadn’t a clue were to begin. I met with the Rev. Tony Hudson, who served with us as a seminarian and has a specialty in senior ministry. He had some excellent ideas and I was hoping that he might be interested in such a position. It was a helpful conversation, but he could not take the job on. Then I thought of Dale Ostrander, not really that he could take such a job, since I knew he had a full-time pastoral counseling ministry, and was deeply involved in his own congregation. But at least I could get some ideas from him about where to turn next. We met for lunch. He came with a stack of materials and pages of notes. I was impressed that he had given so much thought to this. After about a half-hour he stopped himself in mid-sentence, looked at me and said, "I got to tell you, Jim, I am really interested in this position." I think my jaw dropped. And I said to myself "Thank you, Jesus!" I couldn’t believe it. A dream come true. Then I told Dale about my conversations with Linda. And, of course, he and Linda had worked together on and off for over fifteen years. Then I mentioned to Dale that we were meeting with Linda next Wednesday morning, and would he like to come? He said he would.
That meeting took place the week before Christmas and was well attended by council members and representatives from Christian education. In that meeting something clicked, I believe. Call it the Holy Spirit or whatever you want. But what became clear was that the task of our congregation in the next three to five years is two-fold (three-fold actually). The two pastoral tasks we have are these, and they are of equal importance: first, to explore and clarify our pastoral mission, and develop staff roles to meet that mission - to children, youth, young adults and elderly (and everybody really). We have a lot of great ideas, but they are not totally clear yet. The second task, is to recognize the special needs we still have as a congregation in grief and transition. It has long been recognized that there is a role for "intentional interim ministry" for churches in transition. Churches that should have intentional interim ministers and don’t, often end up with "unintentional interim ministries." Our twin needs at CCC (as Jean Alexander discerned) are to move ahead in exploration of new staffing models, and to care for our special needs in transition.
At this meeting the week before Christmas, Linda beautifully articulated this for us, and it became clear to me that she would be an ideal person to bring on board to do it.
The executive council then met twice in January to determine how the church leadership felt about this approach and how to process this with the entire congregation. Our associate conference minister for the Potomac region, the Rev. Kwami Osei-Reed, met with the council to clarify what interim ministry means, and to acquaint us with United Church of Christ policy in this regard. He stressed that interim ministers are hired and contracted with, not called. Call means that the congregation conducts a competitive job search, which results in a vote of the congregation to a permanent position. An interim minister is not called, but contracted with for a limited period of time, for express pastoral purposes. This is not the result of a competitive search, but someone hired directly by the Trustees. Kwami stressed that long term interim pastorates could formally extend up to a period of five years. Not only does Kwami thoroughly endorse this approach for us at this time, he went on to say that, a staff that includes Linda Carder and Dale Ostrander would be the envy of the United Church of Christ. Our Conference Minister, John Deckenback has personally echoed those same sentiments to me.
The executive council worked through January to craft a process for congregational response and input into this plan, and a letter was sent outlining this process and setting the target date of March 21st for a vote.
This leaves me a little breathless. Of course, I did not go into the third major task before CCC in the near-term, which is our building program and capital campaign. But I believe that the prospect of our long-term interim staffing plan has now freed up a tremendous amount of energy to devote to making our building and properties better equipped to carry out our mission.
I would have to honestly say to you that I have felt the hand of God at work in all this. The older I get the more I recognize how little I know, and how dependent I am on the wisdom of others, and the networks of caring people who make up our congregation and denomination at every level. I believe that God has been there for us. There will be another opportunity following worship this morning to discuss all this. And staff members and the executive council are personally available to you.
We truly are in the midst of a journey in the spirit. AMEN.
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