vividreports: Ecclesiastical Council

Last evening we held an Ecclesiastical Council via Zoom - a first for me, certainly, and maybe a first, period. What is an Ecclesiastical Council? In the system of governance in the church to which I belong - the United Church of Christ, which has its roots in the Congregational Church, important decisions concerning the ministry are made not by a Bishop, or by a group of clergy, but by a kind of town meeting, a group composed of both clergy and lay people, which gathers to be informed about the facts of the situation, and then takes a vote. In this case, the decision was whether to ordain a man who has been preparing for ordination for many years and had completed all aspects of that period of preparation. In the United Church of Christ, there are four "levels" so to speak of church organization: (1) the local church, in my case, the Guilford Community Church; (2) the Association, which is a fellowship of UCC churches within a fairly small geographical area - in my case, Windham County and the southern half of Windsor County to the north - about 18 churches in all; (3) the Conference, which in my case is the Vermont Conference, a state-wide fellowship of about 130 churches or so; (4) the Synod - a nationwide fellowship of UCC churches - app. 4800 churches or so. The process of ordination takes place at levels (2) and (3). A local church cannot ordain someone on their own. The national denomination is not involved except that it publishes a Manual of Ministr which lays out the guidelines to be followed by the Conference and the Association. Jeremy Kirk, the man who was seeking ordination, became a member of the Guilford Church almost ten years ago, and became what is called a "Member in Discernment" - i.e., someone seeking to be ordained - about 8 years ago. You have to go through a lot of hoops to become an ordained minister. The basic one is "being called," - i.e., having a strong inner feeling that God is speaking to you, encouraging you to become a minister. That can take many forms. In Jeremy's case, he was raised a Roman Catholic, and the earliest call he felt was as an altar boy, wanting to be priest. Later he went to Gonzaga University, and looked up to his Jesuit teachers and wanted to be one of them. You need a local congregation to support this sense of an inner calling - a group of people who get to know you well enough to be able to say with confidence that that sense of calling is genuine. The Guilford Church provided that. But that is not enough. You have to have a seminary education, or its equivalent. That means most commonly getting a Master's in Divinity Degree (MDiv). In Jeremy's case he got a Master's in Theology at Union Theological Seminary, and went on to get a Ph.D. - he had more than needed, but was also missing some specific components of the MDiv, like Clinical Pastoral Education. Today you also have to undergo a thorough psychological evaluation (which costs over $1500!) and also go through a criminal background check (because of clergy child abuse issues, mostly). The capstone to all that is to write and deliver an "Ordination Paper," which lays out your personal "faith journey" and discusses in some detail what you believe - and an outline for you to follow is usually provided, which the candidate can follow slavishly, or with some freedom to be creative. The Conference oversees that process - an older minister is usually assigned the candidate as a mentor, who guides her or him through the process, and the candidate eventually presents that paper to the Conference Committee on Ministerial Standing and Standards (MSSC), a group of 8-10 people from around the state, clergy and lay, who review the entire process with the candidate, make sure all the "i's" are dotted, so to speak, hear the paper, ask questions, and then vote on whether to recommend the candidate to the Association for actual ordination. There were a lot of bumps along the way for Jeremy, many of them unnecessary bureaucratic glitches. It took him eight years to get all his "i's" dotted. But he patiently followed the process and along the way became the pastor of a church (West Dover Congregational Church) - you do not have to be ordained to be a pastor, at least for a while. I was the pastor of little Presbyterian Church in Missouri while I was still in college - just 18 years old! Jeremy is 44 years old. So, what we were doing last evening was carrying out the next step in the process. This might seem redundant - why have another group evaluate Jeremy after he has already gotten the approval of the Conference MMSC? Well, that is rooted in history. In colonial days, there was no state Conference, just the more local Association (our Association was formed in 1791!). The Association oversaw the entire ordination process. The Ecclesiastical Council is a vestige of that older system. Before the Association actually ordains someone, they want to hear his story, hear his faith, and have a chance to ask questions. That is what happened last evening. For the Council to be valid, there had to be a quorum. There needed to be at least eight churches represented, and at least 20 persons in attendance - that is stated in our Association ByLaws. We actually had over 10 churches represented and close to 40 people "present." But because of the pandemic, it was not in-person. Actually, it probably could have been - the ordination will be in person, but everyone will be masked and presumably vaccinated. But we were playing it safe. So it all happened on Zoom. It was a good session. I ended up taking minutes - the usual person, called the Registrar - was not able to be there. So I was "Clerk, pro tem." His paper had been sent out in advance, so he didn't have to read it in its entirety. He summarized it and there were questions. Here is a bit from my minutes: The questions ranged from "what do you find most attractive and most challenging about the UCC?" to "What do you say to someone whose child has just died?" to "what do you believe about substitutionary atonement and the seeming privilege of the human species?" to "Explain your Niebuhr-inspired preference for "self-acceptance" over "self-improvement," to "What is your personal spiritual practice and discipline," to "How is being ordained and no longer having to be a student going to affect your ministry," to "How do you communicate theology to children?" to "Do you need to wear a clerical collar and what does that mean?" mJeremy gave thoughtful replies to all these questions. The vote to ordain him was unanimous. I gave the closing prayer and we all congratulated Jeremy and "went out into the night" so to speak. A good experience. His ordination service will be this coming Sunday afternoon in West Dover. Ellen and I plan to be there.