 from
the Interim Minister & President
It's a time to rekindle and restore
June/July 2006
As I look forward to the Massachusetts Conference Annual Meeting this year, I am well aware of the mixture of feelings that will be surrounding our time together. There will be sadness and grief over staff whose absence reminds us of the pain and uncertainty that are a part of our life at the moment. The work of reconciliation and healing required in this time will at best have only just begun. Yet we will also gather in joy to vote on a new Minister and President. Dr. Jim Antal will be asked to join in leadership with a Conference whose vision is clearer than its path to achieve it. Identifying that path and walking along it will be an initial focus of Dr. Antal’s ministry in and with the Massachusetts Conference. So I know the Annual Meeting will include both a time to weep and a time of joy.
It is important that we come and weep and rejoice together. In this time, perhaps more than many others, the Conference needs to gather as the Christian community it is. We will bring to Mount Holyoke our anger, our differences, our hopes, our dreams, our sadness and our joys. We will not leave fully reconciled, forgiving or forgiven. But we will leave as the one Body of Christ.
Throughout the United Church of Christ this seems to be a time when our differences and disagreements threaten to undo us. It seems that the way we Christians deal with our issues is no different than the way the rest of the world does. I heard that clearly in the anger over the Board’s decision to deal with a financial crisis through staff reductions. The church, some said, should have found another way. There have also been experiences where anger has turned into personal attack, which, it’s equally clear, is not the way the church should behave.
When UCC General Minister and President John Thomas was visiting our Conference a few months ago I watched as someone publicly challenged his integrity and faith. As painful as it must have been for him, he responded with quiet grace. It is an important time for us to come together whether we are on the same page or not. It is a time to love one another even if we might not like the other’s actions or words.
It is important that as many of us as possible come to this Annual Meeting because this is a time to rekindle and restore a vision for the future of the Massachusetts Conference. Though smaller than we once were, we remain strong and faithful. Others in Massachusetts continue to look to the Conference for courageous leadership on issues of justice and deep compassion for those suffering from the woes of our world. I do not expect this to be a moment to forgive and forget. But I do hope that it will be a time when we can come together as the Church, seek the will of the Holy Spirit, hear the Word of God, and be held in the abiding love of Jesus Christ.
The words of a familiar and favorite hymn come to mind: “In the midst of new dimensions, in the face of changing ways, Who will lead the pilgrim people wandering in their separate ways? God of rainbow, fiery pillar, leading where the eagles soar. We your people, ours the journey now and ever, now and ever, now and evermore.*”
(*In the Midst of New Dimensions,
©1985 Julian B. Rush. No. 391
from The New Century Hymnal,
©1995 The Pilgrim Press.)
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