State of the Church
Giiven by the Rev. David R Gaewski on Sunday morning of Annual Meeting at Sugarloaf

I just have to tell you about what happened to me last Sunday! I went to worship at the First Congregational Church of Gardiner. The music was so inspiring! They don’t have enough voices for a choir, but their organist brought tears to my eyes when he played “Simple Gifts” on the upright piano. The children’s story was GREAT! To tell you the truth, I had heard that one before, you know the one about holding the all the sticks together and not being able to break ‘em. But the kids were so comfortable up front that it made me relax and the youth minister who told the story beamed of love for children. I’m told that she use to be a school principal. Talk about an inclusive church! Everyone is welcomed there: young and old, rich and not rich, single and married, gay and straight. It really felt like the banquet table where everyone had a place set for them. And the preaching was simply… how can I say it… well, it was everything that local church profiles ask for when they are looking for a new pastor: dynamic, sincere, faithful, funny, intelligent, heartfelt. And’s what’s more… they had THREE preachers, everyone one of ‘em a gem. At the end of the service I just wanted to linger. What’s more, even though I’m an “ecclesiocrat” from that conference down there in Yarmouth and even though I haven’t been able to find them a pastor for the past year, I felt like part of the family in Gardiner. Oh yeah, that’s right, they don’t have a pastor, just a simple church full of ministers. Our congregational forebearers would not have been surprised at what happened in Gardiner last Sunday. They would have shrugged it off as “the congregational way”. I drove out of the parking lot feeling so very hopeful for the future.
The task for me to reflect upon this morning is the future of our United Church in Maine. What does the road look like out ahead? Fortunately, I don’t have a crystal ball, and God’s future will be as new and exciting for me as it will be for all of us. When we look toward our future for the Maine Conference there are two guiding principles that I suggest be our guide posts. First, the direction of the conference is dependent upon the direction of the local churches. We are little more than an extension of your ministry. The vitality of the conference depends upon the vitality of the local church; the health of the conference, upon the health of the local church; the vision of the conference, upon the vision of the local church. That is the first guidepost, this is the second: we can go were we want to go, or we can go where God is calling us. The choice is ours to make. During sabbatical I thought a great deal about God’s call for the church. What are we really suppose to be doing? What is most important for us to do and to be? To begin to mull over the answer of that, let me tell a story.
What I liked most about my sabbatical (and some of you have heard me give different answers to this question) but today’s answer of what I liked most is: doing the family laundry. Each morning after sleeping in late, I got up and did a load of laundry. There’s no dryer at the Kapa’a parsonage, somehow a dryer in Hawai’i doesn’t make a lot of sense. So I would go out in the backyard and hang the wet clothes up on the line: my son’s bathing suit, my daughters’ tee shirts, my wife’s sundress, my own socks, the sheets we slept on, and so on. I felt close to my family doing this chore. Do you know the smell of freshly washed clothes hanging on the line? A clean, caring, simple smell. That’s kind of what the Gardiner church smelled like last week, come to think of it—and you and I both know that’s not what church always smells like. Sometimes it seems like a church doesn’t have any windows that open, ‘cause no fresh air gets in.
So during sabbatical I’d be hanging clothes on the line every morning and over the yard fence I’d see my neighbor tinkering in the yard. He’d always say “Morning, pastor,” although he never showed up at any of the churches I preached in. This guy seemed pretty low on his luck. I’m kinda sure he didn’t have a job, although every Tuesday morning before I woke up, he’d sneak into my garage and take my garbage can out to the road for the garbage collector. Even though I told him he didn’t have to do that, he just kept doing it. There were a lot of kids in that family and I have a hunch that there were more problems going on over there than even a neighborly eye could see. Nonetheless, each day we’d give each other a smile and exchange a few friendly words. He’d look over at my clean laundry, and I’d look over at his. How silly it would have been if we pretended that we weren’t looking, or didn’t notice, or didn’t care. I know him better than I know my neighbors in Readfield because every day we talked, and our yards weren’t so big to separate us. Now you and I know I’m working on a metaphor here, but it sure beats me what it is… no, just kidding, I know what it is.
In our congregational history there were two components of every church: the membership and the parish. Congregational membership has always been very small and that is because we have always put a lot of requirements upon membership. The early Congregationalists required each potential member to stand before an Ecclesiastical Council to obtain membership (similar to our requirements for ordination today). Today our standards for membership are less obvious, but no less real. While we may say that its easy to become a member of our churches—small or large-- it’s probably not as easy to fit in as we think. The paradigm shift that I think God calls us to make is from exclusive membership to inclusive parish. The ministry in which each church engages must be an outward focused caring ministry. Yes, we care for and pray for those who sit in the pew, but we must imagine the church without walls that separate us or even protect us. We are called as churches to have an intimacy with our communities not unlike the intimacy I shared with my neighbor in Kapa’a.
It’s not possible to speak on the “state of the conference” apart from the “state of the local church” because the conference is little more than the expression of our ministry and mission together. If the local church is vital, so will the conference be. As Jean and I have visited churches of every glen and dale throughout Maine we carry away with us many impressions. I’d like to say a few words about ministry in the small church. I was pastor of two small churches in Vermont and know very well the depth of caring for an extended family that can happen there. But I also know the struggles that exist around money issues and decision making. The early Congregationalists envisioned churches only as small churches. Nonetheless, it is not easy to be a small church and pastors of these congregations face very unique challenges and demands. What I have seen is that the concept of a “parish” is more readily accepted in small church ministry—personally I think this is and will be the real strength of small church ministry: and remember, much of our conference is small church ministry. It is for this reason that the coordinating council with support from Jean and me bring brought before you our recommendation for additional staffing in the area of small church ministry. From our perspective it is the most critical area facing us. A part-time position focused on small church development is NOT enough, but from our perspective it is a faithful step forward and it is our belief that this is what God is calling us to do. I lifted up the Gardiner church as I began today to illustrate how important small church ministry is among our Maine communities. The United Church of Christ is called to be the optimistic, inclusive alternative to small town exclusivity. When I pastured in Vermont, we joked about that new family that moved into town…when was it? Oh, yes, it was back in ‘68. The church that thrived was the one who laughed about this, but knew it really was just a joke. In rural Vermont—as in Maine, communities do change and the church is called to evolve with it. As a conference we want to support our small rural churches in this essential ministry. As we look forward we look toward a shared ministry with the goal being local church vitality. This is the conference’s commitment now and in the future.
As I look toward that future of our life together; local churches coming together as the Maine Conference of the United Church, I see us continuing to work at improving communication, providing visibility of the wider church, and providing concerted mission activity such as the Honduras Partnership. As Conference Ministers, I believe the need and the calling has not changed over the past five years. We are to be a pastoral presence for clergy and congregations, to offer support through conflict, to continue our work with placement, and to provide consultation to Church and Ministry committees. The annual feedback to both Jean and I on how we are doing in these areas, is that we take on too much. Particularly as I am making the shift back from sabbatical to the pace of conference life, I see your point. We are also called to take care of ourselves. The reason I mention this last point is because we need to be clear about what service we can and can not offer. The part-time position will provide more direct service to small congregations, but it will not allow conference staff the extra time to initiate or to fund new programs.
Exactly five years ago I wrote an article in MainStay about “trust”. I was hoping that in the years to come we would build up trust. I said that there were three building blocks to trust: shared common experience, proof of integrity, and time. With all sincerity I can say that all of our conference staff as well as the volunteer leadership on the Coordinating Council and Executive Committee, the Commissions and the Ministry Teams, have striven to build trust over the past five years and we are committed to doing the same in the future. In that October ’97 article, I mentioned that while Jesus may not like everything that people do, he models how to have “faith in” the best that each person can do. “To have faith in”, in Greek pisteuo, also means to trust. This type of trust, this “faith in” trust, is what allows us to have unity amid our diversity of opinion. It is the key for us to remain the witness of a United Church, of Christ, in Maine.
In closing I would like to thank the conference for the privilege to do ministry in your midst during the past five years. I thank the staff and the volunteers for their time and commitment. But mostly I thank my wife who is my greatest support and partner in all ministry as well as life.