What's the big deal?
First let me express my delight that I’ll be returning to Neighborhood Church this summer! You are a church of my heart and I look forward to being with you for the month of June.
Forty years of ordained ministry! This is such a milestone for David, perhaps it bears saying a little bit about why. I am never sure that most lay members of churches understand much at all about ordination. You just know that your pastor helps you catch glimpses of God in the midst of life, ministers to you in times of need, and leads your church to be a welcoming, faithful, and stirring witness to God’s love. Michael has asked me to write to you about just this.
Ministers in our United Church of Christ tradition aren’t just grown, unlike in some others. We’re educated, vetted, prayed over and ordained. We follow our bachelor degrees with three years of seminary where we learn how to think Biblically and theologically, how to understand the broad sweep of Christian history, and how to minister, preach and lead effectively. During seminary we begin to practice the arts of ministry by working in supervised ministry and doing at least one semester of intensive Clinical Pastoral Education. Through CPE we learn in a health care context about ourselves and the experiences of people going through health crises.
All of this leads to one’s candidacy for ordination. Not all who are educated are ordained. A lengthy process of discernment, usually at least three years, is required from the candidate and the Church and Ministry Committee of the regional association where one is seeking ordination. Candidates meet with the committee which includes both laity and clergy, undergo psychological testing, prepare documents, including a substantial paper on their understanding of ministry and their call from God, and are interviewed repeatedly. Extensive reference checks are conducted. And once the committee votes to recommend for ordination, an “ecclesiastical council” is convened from all the churches and clergy of the association where the candidate presents their paper and is questioned about their theological stances, understanding of ministry, and most importantly, their ongoing relationship with God, Christ and the Holy Spirit.
It's a long process. In the end, though, it means that both the candidate and the wider UCC as well, are convinced that this person is well suited for the holy work of Christian ministry. And here’s how that matters: Because ministry is a sacred trust, our UCC connection and its requirements for maintaining ordained ministerial standing ensure that our clergy are trustworthy. You can know that your Senior Minister was not only once ordained, but remains in good standing because the UCC requires ongoing accountability, continuing education, and observance of safe conduct boundaries in all relationships. In the unusual instances in which a pastor fails to meet those standards, s/he is held to account and can lose their ordained standing. Without this covenantal relationship of pastor, church and UCC, we’d all be left hanging in the wind, so to speak.
So forty years later, David is still in ministry, still leading, still worthy of that sacred work. He has repeatedly met the expectations of your association and Conference and the wider UCC. Vitality in ministry is hard to sustain, so 40 years is a time to celebrate and express appreciation as you are doing. May David and Neighborhood Church be blessed with many years of vitality to come!