Rev. Tamara Torres McGovern's approach to ministry integrates her commitment to education with her belief in storytelling as the ground of community transformation. Though she loves worship, she believes that God is most often encountered outside the walls of the sanctuary, through the sharing of self and bearing witness to others. 

Rev. Tamara is a Kripalu trained yoga instructor and has taught classes to students of all ages, body types and abilities. She currently is in the process of becoming a facilitator through the Enneagram Institute. Through these modalities and others she facilitates the cultivation of radical self-acceptance, which she believes to be a vital path to knowing God's love.

Rev. Tamara graduated with a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary and received her Bachelor's degree at Mount Holyoke College. A native Spanish speaker, during seminary she spent time on the U.S./Mexico border working on affordable housing and workers rights education. She also facilitated national trainings with Episcopal Relief and Development's US Disaster Response team. Since seminary Rev. Tamara has served as the Associate Minister at South Church in Granby, CT and at First Parish in Gorham, ME. She lives in Portland with her partner, their new baby, and their Puerto Rican street dog. 

Sankofa: Moving Forward While Looking Back

My son Dan spent his junior year of college in Ghana, and he returned home with many souvenirs. One I found particularly interesting: it was a wooden carving of a bird with its head turned 180 degrees, looking backward. He explained to me that it was a Sankofa bird, a mythical bird that is very important to Ghanaian culture and values. “Sankofa” means moving forward while looking backward: preserving the best of the past while moving into the future. Frequently the Sankofa bird is depicted holding an egg in its beak, the egg representing the future still to be born. The Sankofa bird is neither afraid of the future, not is it resisting change. But it is wise enough to bring forward into that future the best of the past.

One of my favorite Bible passages also explores the interplay between past and future. It is Isaiah 43:16-21:

16Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, 17who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: 18Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. 20The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.

The context for these verses is God’s promise to the people of Israel that after suffering many years of exile and captivity at the hands of the Babylonian empire, God is now going to lead them back to their homeland. The imagery contained in the surrounding chapters in Isaiah suggests that this will be a second Exodus for God’s people, reminiscent of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Note that in the verses cited above we are first reminded of how God has acted decisively in the past to secure Israel’s liberation, and right on the heels of this historical review of God’s past saving actions, the people are told, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the thing of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

This passage always makes me laugh. I can hear one of the children of Israel saying, “Gee Lord, you were the one that brought up all that stuff about the past—now I’m supposed to ignore it?” I love the passage,  because it makes us think deeply about what we need to hold onto, and what we need to let go of, in order to embrace the future and allow God to do something new in our midst. In this case the children of Israel need to remember and trust God’s faithfulness and power to save, made known to them through their Egyptian experience. But they also need to let go of those things that would keep them from recognizing God’s presence and activity in the current moment, lest they become obstructionists to the future that God intends.

In the swirling changes around us and in us, both the Sankofa bird and the prophet Isaiah ask us to consider: What is important to keep? What do we need to let go? How can we open our eyes to the new thing God is doing—See, now it springs forth!

Shalom,
Pastor Annette

Woodfords is happy to be hosting participants of the Fuller Center Bike Adventure this July. This amazing group of people rides across the country to raise money for the Fuller Center for Housing and to join in home builds along the way. They will be using the Lounge, Cloister and small kitchen on the first floor during their time here. You may see them around the building! For more information about the Fuller Center and the bike adventure, 

Here we are, the middle of June and summer has arrived for sure. I’ve been busy with lots of Physical Therapy and my knee continues to heal well. While I may not be up to tennis this summer, I’ll be ready for skiing next winter. And it’s a good thing all is on the mend because I’m off and running!

I spent last week in Connecticut at my sister Susan’s house helping her get ready for her son’s wedding which I officiated on Saturday. The weather was far from perfect but it was a grand celebration! Sam, my nephew, is a professional firefighter for the city of Waterbury, and also serves as the Fire Inspector for the town of Litchfield, where he grew up and continues to live. Colleen, now Mrs. Samuel Kinkade, is the Rec. Department Coordinator for the town of Goshen. It was an amazing day, with lots of family present that I don’t often see. That’s me with Sam (above) and with my younger brother, Larry, and another sister-in-law, Cathy (below). Cathy lives in Illinois and is the widow of my older brother, Rob. Larry and his family live in North Granby, CT.

  Today, I’m on my way to England to study and catch up with Sharon and Roy Stephenson. Sharon will be my “tour guide” as I visit sites that were significant during the English Protestant Reformation. Talk about change!! Even though King Henry VIII split from the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope in Rome, the emerging Church of England remained tied to the same rites, liturgy and polity; in fact, all that really changed as he broke away was that he replaced the Pope as the head of the Church! In fact, the real change came as Separatists, including the newly emerging Congregationalists, attempted to either “purify” the Church, or break away completely.

In preparation for my study in England, I had the opportunity to study manuscripts and information from the Congregational Library and Archives on Beacon Street in Boston. If you’ve never had the opportunity to visit, it’s well worth the trip. I’ve included part of a document entitled: “The Congregational Christian Tradition.” It’s a good read for all of you who might have forgotten how fierce and complicated the schism was in England. Makes the changes our churches are embracing today look rather mild! The full article can be found at www.congregationallibrary.org/researchers/congregational-christian-tradition.

I’ll bring your warm wishes to Sharon and Roy and know she’ll be sending me back with love for all of you! I’ll continue to keep you posted on all that I’m absorbing on this remarkable Sabbatical journey!
Blessings, Rev. Carolyn

Excerpt from the Congregational Library & Archives: Congregational Library and Archives
“The Congregational Christian Tradition”

Beginnings
The Congregational churches trace their origins to sixteenth-century England, where they were one part of a large and diverse effort to reform the Church of England. After King Henry VIII parted ways with the Roman Catholic Church over his marriage problems, the Anglican Church, as it was also called, kept the forms of Catholicism — the celebration of the Mass, ceremonial "vestments" for the clergy, and the hierarchy of archbishops and bishops — but under the authority of the English king rather than the Pope.

What began as a political change, however, ended up forever changing the landscape of religion in Great Britain and the United States. The dissenters opposing Church of England were known as "Puritans," at the time a derogatory reference to their uncompromising zeal for simplicity in worship and church organization. They preferred to call themselves "the Reformed," people following the teaching and practice of the Protestant Reformer John Calvin.

The first Congregationalists were Independents, Puritans who believed each church should be a gathering of believers joined together under a covenant agreement, and with the power to choose their own minister. Beyond that, they disagreed about the likelihood of reforming the Church of England and the need for believers to be separated from its corrupting influences.

Pilgrims and Puritans
Though we often use these two names interchangeably, the two were distinct groups both in England and in North America. The Pilgrims who first arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620 were a small group of Separatist Independents who had fled England in order to establish a "pure" church in the New World, free from Anglican control.

Those who stayed in England resisted the Pilgrims' call for separation, hoping they could change the Anglican Church from within. Under Archbishop William Laud, prospects for change grew dim, and in the 1630s and 1640s thousands of Puritans left England and settled in Massachusetts Bay. Despite the change of scene, they did not abandon their goal of reforming the English church. New England was to be a "city on a hill," a perfect Christian society and an example to the world.

Understanding Puritan New England
New England's Puritans were not the dour, witch-hunting kill-joys of American myth and legend. They were in many ways typical Elizabethan English men and women who enjoyed good ale and good company, and who also held their religious beliefs with deep personal intensity. Early on they flourished in New England, buoyed by the conviction that they were chosen by God to play a central role in the unfolding of human history. This confidence did not endear them to their critics, then or now. When smallpox epidemics decimated the local Native American population, Puritan settlers accepted the tragedy as a sign that God was watching out for them alone.

Churches and church leaders played an important role in shaping New England society, but they had no direct political power. In Puritan theology, church and state had separate roles and responsibilities; magistrates and ministers worked together to make sure that godly standards prevailed. This meant that everyone in the Massachusetts Bay colony, whether a Puritan or not, had to attend church and obey the laws of the Commonwealth.

Today, this requirement looks like intolerance of the worst kind — though they were religious dissenters in England, the New England Puritans refused to allow anyone else the same freedom. But the truth is that no one anywhere in Europe believed that religion should be a personal choice: the church was an arm of the government, and rulers always decided how their people would worship. The Puritan Commonwealth, the city on a hill, was also something more than a New World colony. It was a "holy experiment", a place where a dedicated band of believers would show the world what Jesus Christ really intended. 

Becoming Congregationalists
In New England Independents became Congregationalists. This means that though individual churches were "sufficient," meaning that they ran their affairs without intrusion from outside, they were also part of a network of mutual obligation and "watch care." Local churches regularly consulted each other on difficult questions about calling ministers or disciplining members — there was no such thing as a Congregational handbook that everyone could follow.

In 1648 the ministers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony met together to draw up the Cambridge Platform, a document that laid out standards for ordaining ministers, accepting new church members, and cooperation between local churches. This would be the closest Congregationalists would come to a constitution, and the last time they would all meet together for the next two centuries. Congregationalism in Connecticut took a slightly different tack: the Saybrook Platform of 1708 allowed for ministers to meet together in consociations and associations, and gave them power to make binding decisions over individual churches. 

The Puritan Heritage
In all Congregational churches members held equal power, all of them responsible to each other under the covenant that formed the basis of their life together. In fact, ministers first became church members before he could be chosen and ordained by the church. Even then the minister's power was subject to the will of the congregation — he led by their consent.

Were Congregational churches democratic? The connection with later events in New England, especially the American Revolution, does suggest that something important was happening in the Puritan Commonwealth. But of course, not everyone had the right to vote — women had no official voice in church matters and dissenting Baptists and Quakers, when they were not being forcibly banished, still had to pay taxes for church support. But in other very important ways, Congregational New England was unique in the seventeenth-century world. Ordinary citizens had unprecedented power to make decisions about land and property, and to hold their leaders in check.   

A Progressive Legacy
Many of the nineteenth century's most innovative and influential thinkers were Congregationalists. Before the Civil War a generation of theologians — Samuel Hopkins, Joseph Bellamy, Nathaniel Emmons, and Nathaniel William Taylor — reworked Calvinism to mesh with the democratic values of American culture. In the mid-century Hartford pastor Horace Bushnell pioneered a host of new ideas that would change the direction of American theology. In place of a separate, transcendent God, Bushnell emphasized immanence, God's involvement at every level of human society, even the most intimate interactions between parents and children.

Contributions
In many ways, the Congregational Christian churches are at the heart of the American Protestant tradition; their influence on American thought and social conscience are still strong. As pioneers in education, social justice, and Christian unity, they have indelibly shaped the world we have inherited.