The past year was marked by several key “stages” in chronological progression: Church conflicts; personal health issues; National Youth Event (NYE); Honduras Partnership; and God is Still Speaking. The addition of David Ray to our conference staff significantly shifted my time and energy from placement to program. In this report I will briefly address each of these areas of my ministry.

While assistance to churches in the pastoral transition process continues to be the high priority of my ministry, with David Ray’s ministry in place, I have had a significantly fewer number of search committees. David’s ministry is to assist congregations in transition with less than a ¾ time pastoral position as defined by the conference clergy compensation guidelines. As of October 2003 I was handed ten of the churches I had started working with over to him. To date, David has enabled nine of these ten to secure pastoral leadership to date. My search and call work has focused upon several mid-sized churches including Augusta, Boothbay Harbor, Belfast, Hallowell, Newcastle 2nd, Pittsfield. At the time of this writing all but one of these successfully called a new settled pastor. By the time of Annual Meeting I expect all to have happily completed their process. Sadly, the Hallowell church grieves the recent tragic death of their beloved newly installed pastor, Rev. Terry Smith. They will now take some time to grieve and then begin the process once again.

There have been two conflicted situtations that I have worked with in the past year, one of which included a Fitness Review and much acrimony and pain. This area of my ministry is not only very time consuming, but also exhausting. Together with the Association Church and Ministry Committee, I continued to keep conversation and dialogue open with the conflicted congregation. I can not say that anyone is satisfied or feels good about the process that we have been through over the past year in this one circumstance. However, I firmly believe that the decisions of the Association Church and Ministry Committee have been sound, pastoral, and just. Indeed this is the most difficult area of conference work.

During the first couple of months of 2004, I was beset with several personal health issues including the worst flu in my life. It was particularly difficult to lay low to heal, and not work. I am very thankful to all of my colleagues on the conference staff for taking up whatever slack occurred due to my illnesses. I am also most thankful to the personnel committee for their support and encouragement.

By early Spring, I had come to be known as Mr. NYE. Last year at Annual Meeting I challenged Maine to send 50 youth to National Youth Event (this would have doubled the number we sent in 2000). Some doubted, some called me crazy and a dreamer….. lo and behold, we had 122 Maine youth and 22 adults fly from Bangor to Knoxville. Maine Conference, you are awesome! Churches you are awesome for encouraging your youth to attend; conference volunteers (especially YMAT) you are awesome for your persistance, hard work and belief in the dream; trip advisors you are awesome for your dedication; conference staff you are awesome for your tireless work (ok, sometimes we did get tired…); and youth you are completely awesome. You can not imagine how proud we were in Maine to have Katie Roedner (State Youth Council President) and Eric C. Smith (Synod Vice-Moderator) address all 3800 youth at NYE with such conviction and passion! The NYE event was undoubtedly life transforming for so many of our youth, but more; the NYE experience is already transforming and igniting new horizons of youth ministry in Maine. I will address this in more detail in my “State of the Conference” address on Saturday of Annual Meeting.

This has been the year that we have begun to live into the new seven year covenant that we voted upon last year between the Maine Conference and the Evangelical and Reformed Church of Honduras. There have been some bumps along the way and the Maine Honduras Committee has worked extremely hard to resolve some unforseen complications. Kudos to Alice Anderman for her dedication to our partnership. In August Alice Anderman (Waterville), Dawn Berry (Falmouth), Rod Tibbetts (Westbrook Warren) and Cathy Swift (Camden) spent five days with our partners in Honduras and planned in great detail the events that will take place over the next two year period. You will hear details of these plans during Plenary I at Annual Meeting. There continue to be MANY opportunities for churches and individuals to become involved. We particularly encourage individuals to consider sponsoring a youth studying at CEVER, a vocational school owned and run by the E&R Church in Honduras.

As the “conference year” comes to a close we are just now gearing up our conference activity for the God is Still Speaking Initiative (GISS). Doug Guy (Machias), Iris Burnell (Edgecomb), Tom Hancock (Casco) and I were trained as GISS trainers in Cleveland last June. We are now actively training local congregations how to utilize this initiative which is aimed at promoting United Church of Christ Identity, Growth and Stewardship. If you have not heard about God is Still Speaking, you will, you will.

Truthfully, the past year has been among the most challenging of the seven years I have served as one of your two conference ministers. There is always more to do than hours to accomplish the tasks. I am very grateful to the conference volunteers and conference staff for their service. I am also confident that our conference is strong, healthy, optimistic, and faithful. Praise be to God.

David R Gaewski