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Massachusetts Conference Edition
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Wendy Vander Hart: Familiar face joins Conference staffby Tiffany Vail, Associate for Communication and Communication Technologies August/September 2007
To anyone who has attended a Massachusetts Conference Annual Meeting recently, Wendy Vander Hart is a familiar face. She’s the one who, while on the Board of Directors, had participants chanting throughout the meeting: “A budget is a tool for mission and ministry.” And she’s the one who, every year, stands up to tell the crowd what a good bargain Fellowship Dues are, how they should be increased, and how everyone in the pews should be encouraged to pay their share. Vander Hart, pastor of the Melrose Highlands Congregational Church, is also known to her ministerial colleagues through the Pastoral Excellence Program, serving as a new clergy group facilitator and a participant in a clergy Community of Practice. Vander Hart says she hopes the trust that she has built up in the Conference will be a valuable resource as she takes on the role of full-time Acting Associate Conference Mini-ster working with churches in the Metropolitan Boston Association and the Central Association north sector. “Building relationships based on trust and possibility will be the bulk of the work,” Vander Hart said, particularly after all the transition that the Conference has been facing. “The grief of change needs addressing as well as the steady encouragement to move into new modes of being church together,” she said, adding that she is excited about the Conference’s changing priorities as reflected in the Board of Directors proposal, “A Still More Excellent Way.” “I’m intrigued by the shift,” she said. “The Conference is doing something new, and it’s good to have a transition in staff and leadership when you are doing something new.” She also believes the work coming up is not for mere survival, but that it “will bring the Massachusetts Conference into a position of growth and vitality” using “the abundant resources” God has given. She is pleased at the plan’s emphasis on forming Communities of Practice as a way for local church leaders to help one another. “I think about some of the quandaries I’ve faced, when I needed to go to a place outside of the system for help,” she said. “Peer to peer relationships – when they are supportive and collegial – helps us to be better pastors.” Vander Hart has served in the Metropolitan Boston Association for all of her 18 years of ordained ministry. She earned her Masters of Divinity at Andover Newton Theological School, and while in seminary she served at Church of the Covenant in Boston. She then served for nine years as Associate Pastor at First Congregational Church of Reading, UCC. She will be leaving Melrose Highlands Congregational Church, UCC after serving nine years as its Pastor. While there she initiated a Labyrinth Ministry and a new church school curriculum, re-vitalized worship, initiated new adult study groups and welcomed membership growth. She has also served as President of both the Melrose Clergy Association and the Reading Clergy Association, and as a member of the Board of the Melrose Alliance Against Violence. Vander Hart is also trained as a Field Education Supervisor through Harvard Divinity School. She has served on the MBA Committee on Ministry. And at the Conference setting, in addition to her Board service and frequent appearances at Annual Meeting, Vander Hart has served on the Conference Strategic Planning Task Force, as chair of the New Church Development Task Force, as Vice Chair of the Commission for Educational Ministries, and as a member of the Leadership Development Commis-sion. She was also a member of the Search Committee for the Minister and President of the Conference. Her references say this about her: “I cannot imagine a more competent, empathetic and dedicated Conference Minister than Wendy Vander Hart....Wendy is “the real deal....” Wendy is an exceptionally gifted pastoral leader. She is deeply grounded in Christian faithfulness and has always been a teaching pastor. Her interpersonal skills and her ability to communicate with persons and groups earn her the trust of those with whom she ministers. Wendy is experienced as both compassionate and prophetic.... She worships with grace, wisdom and warmth... and has earned the respect of lay and ordained folks across Massachusetts; she is without a doubt one of the premier leaders in the Massachusetts Conference.” “I would like to give back to the settings of the church that have so enriched my ministry and my life,” said Vander Hart. “I am someone who speaks the truth in love, deals squarely with conflict when it arises and I am rarely content to do the same old thing ad infinitum.... I connect people with possibility and I am eternally optimistic.” Vander Hart is married to Joanne Paul and they reside in Arlington.
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