Search Team Update

Greetings, colleagues and friends in Christ!

On Saturday, January 10, the Conference Council approved the Search Team's request to drop the "Designated" tag from the Conference Minister search process, and to authorize us to seek a candidate for a settled position as our next Conference Minister. Our discernment and reasoning is as follows:

1) We believe our Conference is in a stronger place in early 2015 than it was in mid-2013.

2) We believe there is a deeper sense of trust, openness and eagerness for the future of the Conference.

3) We believe our financial status is tracking in the right direction toward health, solvency and overall well-being and that our financial situation will continue to improve.

4) We believe our interim ministries, under the guidance of Davida Foy Crabtree, Jan Aerie and Allen Fluent, along with the continuing ministry of Dale Parson, have listened well, responded pastorally and re-ignited trust in Conference staff and its leadership role.

5) We believe that the Vision Team, under the guidance of Dick Hamm and Paul Koch, is contributing significantly to the sense of belonging and investment in our Conference's future story, and we celebrate the newly-approved Vision Team's "Dreaming God's Future Dream" document (see below) and "A 2020 One Act Play" as key components of a positive forward-motion.

6) We believe that all these positive signs suggest that we are ready to search for and recommend a call to a settled Conference Minister with a clearly-stated, open-ended covenantal relationship.

7) We believe that opening up this search process may enlarge the candidate pool.

8) We believe that the situation in Ferguson and beyond calls upon us to make long-term commitments as a Conference to justice, reconciliation and peace, and we are eager to engage a new Conference Minister in developing sustained relationships in these areas.

9) We believe that the first several years of a settled ministry alongside a new Conference Minister will be a transitional time in any case - a time of discernment and development of new models for ministry in our Conference and across the United Church of Christ. We imagine our new Conference Minister would join us in this exciting time of change and invention and be eager to put her or his stamp on this shared future and give longer-term leadership to live into a fresh vision of the gifts that the United Church of Christ can bring to the region and the whole church.

The revised profile appears today on the national UCC website at "Employment Opportunities".  It is also posted on our Missouri Mid-South Conference website, with supporting documents. We have set a sixty-day window of opportunity for applicants to request our profile from the national church.

We will be working closely with the newly-approved Conference Vision document and leaders across the Conference and the national church to advertise and celebrate all that Missouri Mid-South has to offer as a setting for ministry for persons whom God may be calling to share in this unfolding partnership!

The Search Team: Lorin Cope, Wayne Hoffman, Elaine Hudson, Laura Mignerone (vice chair), Linda Stenger, Sonya Vann, Lloyd Viehland, Karen Watson and David Mehl (chair)

Vision Team Update

Your Missouri Mid-South UCC Vision Team has listened, prayed and discerned input from hundreds of voices across the Conference articulating what our exciting future can and will look like.  "Dreaming God's Future Dream: Our 2020 Future Story" (click on link to read/print the story) presents this vision revolving around five mission imperatives that will guide how our mutual ministry proceeds.  You are invited and encouraged to read this Future Story as if five years from now.  Our 2020 Vision will help us see clearly God's "New Thing" and our potential for continued spiritual growth and faithfulness.  Strategic points and blue prints for action will be coming in the very near future.  Thanks to all for making this Vision a reality.   

Rev. Dr. Paul Koch, Vision Team chair