OUR JOURNEY AND COVENANT OF MINISTRY

Comments by

The Rev. Susan Manker-Seale

One of the most hated descriptions of ministry, at least, according to ministers, is that of the marriage. Every time someone compares the congregation and minister as bride and groom, or whatever other combination you want to use, ministers groan. So, I probably shouldn’t even have told you that, because it might only serve to perpetuate the analogy, but just try to refrain.

It is true that love is a factor. And that it takes two to tango. Ministers and congregations do love each other, usually, and may even fight like married couples – do fight like married couples. And like married couples, some fight better than others, and some worse. It also is a relationship of sharing and communicating, giving and receiving, and all those interpersonal interactions, healthy or not.

But ministers are not married to congregations. Maybe it’s the installation ceremony that’s confusing. There is certainly a lot of pomp and circumstance to those. We’re going to witness one this very afternoon as some of us go to participate in Rod Richard’s installation in Sierra Vista. But it is not a marriage.

Maybe it’s the promises that make the analogy so enduring. Couples make promises to each other in their marriages, and ministers and congregations enter into covenants, which are also promises. There are not a lot of examples in our society of people entering into covenants besides marriage and ministry. We certainly don’t covenant with our doctors or lawyers or teachers or politicians. Maybe we ought to.

My history with you, this congregation, began ten years ago (nine and a half to be exact) as an appointed full-time position, Extension Minister. We did mutually agree to this, but you hadn’t called me as your minister. I came with a promise to serve for three years, and with a special covenant to help you to grow. You were 73 members, and we did grow. In my second year as your extension minister, you voted to call me as your settled minister, with an open-ended contract as all settled ministries are. I serve as long as you want me to, and as long as I want to—as long as the ministry is meaningful to us both.

At that time, we talked about my style and passion of ministry. Just because I was becoming your called minister didn’t mean I was leaving my mandate toward growth behind. Growth is merely a term to describe the type of ministry which is welcoming to all. Which is invitational and shared. Which says, and truly acts as though, you are welcome here. You are all welcome here. No matter how big we get. Those of you who were here agreed. We weren’t going to limit who was welcome.

We have done a heck of a lot in ten years. We have created social action ministries and pastoral care ministries and educational ministries and music ministries and organizational ministries. We’ve created the Finding Heart Ministries program together, and Neighborhood Care Circles, and become a Welcoming Congregation and created a Religious Education program that includes the Centers model and Our Whole Lives Sexuality curriculum and a Campus Ministry. We’ve bought land and conducted a Capital Campaign. We’ve conducted vigils and attended rallies and showed movies and had many, many, many, many meetings. We’ve completely changed the organizational structure of the congregation and how we run things and have a bang-up Policies and Procedures manual and last year, engaged in an incredible strategic planning process. When I came, we were still functioning as a “church-in-a-box” even though we had this building. We had to learn to centralize our office here and bring the records together here and create an entire organization practically from scratch. And we’ve cleaned this home of ours how many times?

Now we’re 190 members. I just found out we have about 150 friends on top of that, mostly spouses of members and including people in other states who still want our newsletter. I think we have about 60 children and youth. We have a more than half-time Religious Education Director, and a Choir Director and an Administrator, each about quarter time, give or take, all of them superb in their work with us. We also have a bookkeeper and child care workers, also excellent. And I can’t even begin to describe the fantastic ministries you, the members and friends, have engaged in over the years. You are wonderful to work with, to minister with.

We’ve been transforming ourselves from a pastoral congregation, centered around a more personal ministry, to a program congregation, centered around your shared ministries and the programming we offer. My role has changed dramatically, just as church growth literature describes. And I feel the need for us to create a covenant that acknowledges who we are today and affirms the ministry we do together. I need for us to be on the same page in envisioning where we are heading in our shared ministry here.

Angela Merkert has come to help lead us in this process this afternoon, and she is joining us in this service today to engage us a little more in understanding this process of covenanting, which, by the way, is not a marriage.