Central Atlantic Conference Annual Meeting Newark Delaware 4 Miscellaneous

The total number of people in attendance was 87 clergy, 111 lay delegates, and 58 visitors.
They showed videos as a part of the Sherrie Taylor's New Jersey Association report.  One was of the Camp Bernie Youth Retreat.  I recognized some of our youth who attended that meeting,  I will try to get a copy to show in church. 

The other was the newest church member of the association Grace United Church in Flemington NJ.  I was involved on the committee for that new church start and attended that church in the summertime when there was no choir at Christ Church.
The church in Paramus agreed to disband and sold the property.   The money has gone into the Paramus Congregation Trust Fund which is administered by the conference. Twenty three % of the money goes to local church ministries and the rest is used by the conference for new church starts etc.  This took a long time to resolve.

During worship they showed some videos about Open and Affirming Churches.  I send in some photos for this, but the only photo I recognized was an old choir photo, which I did not send in.  Oh well.

Associate Conference Minister Richard Vaught is retiring in November and Sherry Taylor will retire sometime next year.  Therefor the conference will be starting a search for an interim conference minister.  They will also form a committee to discuss whether the duties of a conference minister will change.  Currently there are four conference ministers for five conferences, there used to be five.  They want to know if each conference should have a minister or should the duties be broadly spread over all the conferences by three ministers.  The reduction is due to the lack of funds.

The banquet speaker for Saturday night was Dr. Robert Orr who is Director of planning for the UN.
He said that the UCC is responsible for the UN being in existence.  During World War I the United States did not join the League of Nations.  The Congregational Church (precursor to the UCC) worked hard during World War II to make sure that the US was involved in the UN.
The present goals of the UN are:
        Limitations to nuclear power
        Saving the environment
        The empowerment of women
         the empowerment of young people as it is their world.
He documented the reasons for those goals.

Jeannette Brown
UCC Representative

Central Atlantic Conference Annual Meeting Newark Delaware 3. Boundary Training

On Sunday of the Meeting,  the workshop was Boundary Awareness Training for clergy and lay leaders. Here is information about Round 1.

The 2006 Annual Meeting of the Central Atlantic Conference affirmed a resolution from the Chesapeake Association which called upon the Conference and its Associations to undertake Boundary Training for its clergy and church leaders.

Following the adoption of this resolution by the Annual Meeting the Conference Ministry Team called together representatives of the five associations to design a Boundary Awareness Training Program for the Conference. It was agreed that each Association would adopt its own Boundary Training resolution using a similar template and that a common curriculum would be designed.

In order to maintain Ministerial Standing authorized ministers in the five Associations were asked to complete Round One of Boundary Training within two years at any one of the events held throughout the Conference. This two year cycle has been nearly completed.

At least 25 Boundary Awareness Training events have been held at locations throughout the Conference for nearly 400 clergy. A substantial portion of the curriculum for these events was based upon materials developed by the Faith Trust Institute with a particular focus on sexual misconduct.

I believe that all of our clergy has completed Round 1 of Boundary Training.

The workshop was to speak about Round 2 of Boundary Training which would include lay leaders of the church. For information about Round 2 see the link above.

Here is a distillation of the discussion about the workshop:
1. Sometimes people act inappropriately in our relationships to other people including the clergy.
2. We may treat our clergy in an inappropriate manner.
3. The UCC is in the process of developing a code for lay leaders in the church.
4. Lay leaders all have gifts which they want to share, but they need to know when to lead and when to follow.
5. Lay leaders need to understand that the church is not just the local church it is broader than that.
6. An orientation session should be set up for new lay leaders in the church so that everyone is on the same page.
7. Lay leaders
     - Some churches come to agreement by working on consensus in which every voice is heard.
8. The pastor is the head of the local church and should not be asked to have another (former) pastor celebrate a service such as weddings or funerals.  (There was a lot of discussion about this point.)  The reason for this, if the pastor is new, he/she needs to develop a relationship with their flock.
9. Any information that lay people receive in confidence, such as prayer concerns that the person does not want to be made public, that confidence should be respected.
10. The Disciples of Christ have a list of ethical guidelines for congregations that people could consult.
11. The young people (20's and 30's) of the church should be consulted but they have a difference attitude about relationships which should be respected since they are the church.

This is all that I could glean from this discussion which was very lively and interesting.

Jeannette Brown
UCC Representative

Central Atlantic Conference Annual Meeting Newark Delaware 2 Conversation with Geoffrey Black UCC General Minister

Rev Black had a conversation with the members of the audience in which he answered questions about the UCC.  When asked about the mandate to have a "Conversation about Race", he said this should not be a one time thing.  Churches should have an ongoing relationship with another church in the area in which the congregation is totally different from your church in regard to race, social status and sexually orientation.  For example he mentioned a UCC Church in Chapel Hill NC who formed a partnership with an African American Church.  They now share a choir that sings at the UCC church in the morning and then the African American church in the afternoon.  (When I spoke with the Rev about this, he said this is something we could consider.)

There was a question about Rev Jeremiah Wright situation during the Obama election.  He said that he respected Dr. Wright as a colleague and the whole situation was simply political brought up by people who were against the Obama election and people should not put much stock in what was said then.

Rev Black then went on to explain the UCC much of which can be found on the UCC website .
The main goal is plant new churches.  He said the church is changing.  There are now Internet churches where people don't leave their homes to go to church.  When he was the conference minister in New York he said there was a new church start in a bar!  He said the UCC is you, the people.

The core values are:
          God is Still Speaking
          We believe in an extravagant welcome - everyone is welcome in our church
           We beleive in changing lives
            The reason for being is to serve God.

Then he itemized the UCC Goals over the next thirty years.
            To be involved in deep theological engagement to know our faith and that of others.
            To be a bold public voice for legislation and in the media,
                   just as the catholic church and conservative churches.
             To have excellence in leadership which includes the clergy and laity.
             To be passionate about the environment we want to take care of our earth
              We value cultural diversity which is our mantra.  this means age, and the demographics.
                    of the community.

For more about the UCC please visit the UCC website.

Jeannette Brown
UCC Representative

Central Atlantic Conference Annual Meeting Newark Delaware

The Central Atlantic Conference of the UCC Annual Meeting was held last weekend, June 10-12 at the conference center of the University of Delaware in Newark DE.  This is about a 2.5 hour drive from my house which I usually do alone.  This year I decided that it would be pushing my old Volvo to make the drive so I asked for a ride with Rev Chuck Rush was was going anyway because he is a member of the Board of Directors.  We left early and should have arrived on time but we ran into traffic in Princeton New Jersey because of detours.  There had been a storm the night before and maybe some trees were down.
Housing for this meeting is either in the dorm or in the Courtyard by Marriott.  I opted to stay in the hotel and this year I had a roommate.  She was the interim minister of Sojourners UCC Church in Charlottesville Va.  We decided to room together again next year.  The first night Friday we were so tired that we did not talk but we did the last day.  We both sang in the choir. Sojourners is a relatively new church that I visited when we had an Antiracism task force meeting there.  They were meeting in rented space.  They now have a building that they were able to purchase.

Since I got to the meeting early I relaxed over lunch before the formal meeting started at 4:00 PM. It was a group meeting entitled "How we woke up! Good News from the churches - What have we done to Energize our congregations"  This was the theme of the meeting.  Churches were invited to tell their stories.  LL DuBreuil who is minister of a church in Union NJ told us the story of how her church which was formed by the union of a German E & R church and a UCC Church became multicultural and multiracial.  There are a lot of African immigrants who attend her church and have taken over the meetings.  I told the story of "Let Justice Roll" that I wrote up for the UCC Synod.  Rusty Hick's ( a fromer Christ Church minister) church in Homedale  NJ had a interier face lift because a painters union picked their church to paint for free.  Every year they pick a church to help.  One of the members redesigned the church ceiling and they only had to pay for the painting of the design.  Mark Wakefield's (another former Christ Church minister)  church in Middletown MD burned last year.  They were able to get it renovated and put back to normal in one year with the exception of the organ which will be ready in October.
The next meeting for me was choir rehearsal followed by dinner.
The first Plenary Session was the beginning of the business of the session, including the introduction of Rev Geoffry Black, General Minister of the UCC.  We also have seven visitors from Germany including the new Bishop of the Lutheran Church. There was a worship service in which Rev Geoffry Black preached.  The evening ended with a traditional ice cream social.
Saturday consisted of workshops and Plenary  session followed by worship service and banquet.  Many of the attendees come just for Saturday since most of the business is done then and they have to go home to run the service in their churches. It would not be a meeting without a controversy since the business was only the budget and the ministers compensation, I wonders where the controversy would be.  It turned out that they amended the budget to include more money for Lancaster Theological College. The money was added due to an amendment of the budget after a lot of disscussion.
Sunday consisted of workshops and a final worship service which included communion.
I will include details about some of the sessions in my next blog.