Northwest Word

Northwest Wisconsin Association

United Church of Christ

September 2023

Ebenezer UCC in Stratford

to Close on September 24

Ebenezer United Church of Christ in rural Stratford will close its doors and end its ministry on Sunday, September 24. Rev. Doris Ruben will lead worship and preach at the closing worship ser-vice, which will begin at 9:30 A.M. Rev. Ruben was the final called pastor to the congregation before she retired in July of 2022. Moreover, she will repre-sent the Northwest Association in the closing liturgy in her role as a member of the Church and Ministry Division.

The church began its ministry in 1881, and recently celebrated its 140th anni-versary in July, two years late because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The deci-sion was prompted by the deaths of five key members during the past year, as well as the membership declining and getting older. Average attendance at Sunday worship was about seven to ten people. The five member Church Council was composed of people who served two terms and then took one year out before reelection. One council member, 62 years old, had served in this way since he was confirmed.

The church building has been sold to a person who will make it a private home and place of business for her work as an interior decorator.

The 29 acres of land outside the church area and cemetery land has been turned over to the North Central Conservation Trust based in Stevens Point. Remaining members were eager to keep the land as natural forest.

One third of the congregation's assets will go to building a Pavilion next to the cemetery, while another third will go to a Trust Fund to maintain the Seminary. The remaining third will go to the Wis-consin Conference UCC Foundation.

Items Available for Churches: The congregation has items they would be happy to give to other churches for their ministries. An altar, baptismal font, pulpit and candelabra are available. Call Sue Vick at 715-305-3492.

Goranson Retires from

Called Pastoral Ministry

The Reverend Julie Goranson finished her seven year ministry at Grace United Church of Christ on Sunday, August 28. She goes on to that stage of life called retirement. Pictured above are Rev. Goranson, right, with Rev. Michael Jones, Associate Confer-ence Minister, at the August 28 celebration.



Rev. Catherine Duncan

Hold the Date: Pastor's

Retreat October 1-3

Return to the Sacred: Rest and Renewal shapes the theme for this fall's Northeast-Northwest UCC Asso-ciation's Clergy Retreat. Rev. Catherine Duncan, a UCC minister, Integrative Spiritual Consultant, Holistic Healer, Inspirational Speaker, Blogger, and UCC Minister, will lead the program. The retreat, planned for Moon Beach Camp in St. Germain, begins at the dinner hour on Sunday, October 1 and con-cludes on Tuesday morning, October 3.

Planners formally announced the event in an August 28 e-mail to clergy.

All attendees will receive her book, "Everyday Awakening." Her website is https://www.learningtolive.org.

The cost is $225, and the Northwest Association is offering scholarships for new and retired clergy, as well as Members in Discernment.

Register for the retreat through the links on the August 28 e-mail or call the Conference office at 608-846-7880.

Rev. Herbert Perkins to

be Installed September 30

at St. Paul's UCC-Ellsworth

The Reverend Doctor Herbert Perkins (Pastor Okogyeamon) will be installed as Pastor of St. Paul's United Church of Christ in rural Ellsworth. Northwest Association folks are invited to join in the 2:00 P.M. service on September 30 at the church, located at W5706 State Road 72 near Ellsworth. A reception and light supper will follow the service. Clergy are invited to wear vestments and red stoles to march in the procession.

The Rev. Dr. Barbara Anne Keely will preach the sermon for the occasion. Dr. Keely served as Professor of Lea-dership and Economic Life of the Church at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities from 1991 to 2015. Dr. Keely has authored several books on Christian Education and Faith For-mation.

Dr. Perkins began his ministry at St. Paul's UCC last march. A third-career pastor, he earned his Bachelor's Degree at Notre Dame University and his Master of Divinity degree at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. He is the husband of Rev. Denise Dunbar-Perkins, the father of three adult children and the grand-father of four. He enjoys hiking, bi-cycling, gardening, and woodworking.



Wisconsin Conference Seeks

Interim Pastors

Openings Listed on Webpage

The Wisconsin Conference has begun posting interim minister openings on its website https://www.wcucc.org/interim-minister-openings/. Due to the shortage of interim ministers and the many local churches in need of an interim pastor across the Conference, the goal is to advertise in as many ways as possible. If you are a trained interim minister or are interested in interim training and/or want to learn more, please be in contact with ACM Michael Jones. If you are interested in any of the open interim positions in the Conference, please contact the ACM listed on the website for the corresponding church.

New Compensation Guidelines for 2024

The 2024 Compensation Guidelines for the Wisconsin Conference will be presented about the time that this newsletter goes out. Much work was put into these guidelines, which the Commission on Church and Ministry approved. The 2024 Compensation Guidelines present a new model for the way that Local Churches and Autho-rized Ministers approach compensation. The changes are described in the document and in the cover letter from the Commission. Some of the changes include new models for considering

experience, moving from a church membership model to a church parti-cipation model, and that the guidelines will be updated yearly. All of the changes were researched, tested, and discussed at length by the Conference field staff and the Commission. If you have any questions regarding the guidelines, please be in contact with Associate Conference Minister Michael Jones.

Got News for the NW Word?

Send your suggestions to the Pastor Bill Clyma, the NW Word's Editor at pastorbill111@outlook.com, or call him at 763-415-0779.

The Northwest Word is published six times a year in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember and November, by the Northwest Wisconsin Association of the United Church of Christ.

Stewardship Moments

Your use of money shows what you think about God.--Anonymous

From the Desk of Michael Jones,

Associate Conference Minister

One NWWA Delegate Writes About

His Time at the 32nd General Synod

The Reverend David Bowles, Pastor at the Congregational UCC of Ladysmith and the Congregational UCC of Conrath, was one of the Wisconsin Conference's delegates to the 32nd General Synod, which was held in Indianapolis from June 30 to July 5. It was the first time he attended a General Synod, and he was one of seven delegates to Synod from the Northwest Association. His daughter, Esperanza DeJesus Bowles, served as a delegate alternate after the principal delegate was unable to attend. Here is an excerpt of Rev. Bowles' report to his congregations.

We had a keynote speaker at General Synod who is an ELCA Lutheran pastor in Denver, where she has built a congregation of marginalized folks, a flourishing community of queer people, former drug addicts, and folks struggling with different kinds of addictions and troubles. She spoke of her admiration for the UCC, especially in this current day and age when more and more denominations begin to see the blind spots and sinfulness of their old ways. As more and more denominations see that women, for example, have a much broader role to play in the church beyond baking goodies for fellowship time, they begin to strive to make a way for women to move into ordained ministry.

Even the very conservative Southern Baptist Convention at their general conference in the last month split in numerous ugly ways over the matter of ordaining women. More far-seeing folks—like Pastor Rick Warren of The Purpose Driven Life-fame—embrace ordaining women. However, the majority of America’s largest Protestant denomination prefer to remain in something like the Bronze Age of the OT, and more and more of their churches, such as Rick Warren’s 15,000-member (!) congregation, are pulling out for greener pastures on their own.

Our keynote speaker, the Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber, made note of our collective graciousness as the UCC. “Here are Christian people all over America,” she said, “who are proud and joyful to discover that women are people too, and that they can serve churches as ordained ministers, and they’re proclaiming their newfound discoveries, as though they stumbled upon a brave, new world of liberation, and here are all of you, the UCC, rather quietly observing to one another, ‘Yeah, we’ve been doing this for 200 years now.’ How does it feel to be so profoundly right for so long, and so prophetic,” she asked us all, “when everyone else is just now learning of the errors of their ways?”

Our new General Minister and President, Karen Georgia Thompson, sees this new age as an opportunity. Because we are accepting, because we see the good news as good news for everyone and not a select few, and because we open our doors wide and tear down the walls that separate people from Christ’s communion table, we are uniquely situated to break new ground as the church.

President Thompson imagines com-

Gentle Reminders

• Installation of Rev. Okogyeamon Herbert Perkins as Pastor of St. Paul's UCC, Ellsworth, 2:00 P.M., September 30
• Northwest-Northeast UCC Associations' Pastors' Retreat at Moon Beach Camp, October 1-3
• Installation of Tamara Cox as Pastor of Community UCC in Medford, Time TBD

munities of seekers, of disaffected folks from old, bitter, gatekeeping churches, and of younger people, who continue to slide precipitously to the political left because of their concerns about climate change and gun violence, as well as their effortless embrace of the queer community. They understand as well as anyone, and probably better, the rigidity and caveman-like views of too many Christian institutions. Rather than despair, proclaims President Thompson, it’s a wonderful time to be the UCC.

Like Esperanza, I left General Synod feeling prouder to be a UCC minister than I ever have been before. I felt daily amazement at the diversity of our people: all shapes, sizes, ages, colors, and persuasions. We don’t employ bouncers like an exclusive club to make sure the wrong people stay out. In fact, we are all the wrong people, the same kinds of wrong people about whom Jesus tells his parable of the Great Banquet in Luke’s gospel. “Go out into the countryside, into the byways and margins of the world,” the Master of the Feast tells his servants, “and compel all the misfits with their sins and scars, their

blemishes and their failings; compel them to come,” for they will be honored guests in the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaims.

Every day of General Synod, as I sat at the big banquet table in the middle of the plenary hall with Esperanza and my other fellow Wisconsin Conference delegates, I watched people walk past and listened to them bear witness to their miraculous experience of God in Christ, and I struggled to hold back my tears because I was raised by the men in my family, with the exception of my father, not to cry. I experienced this upwelling of emotion because of my joy at the relief so many people found in the welcome they receive at UCC churches all over America, churches that embrace them, call them friend and neighbor, and invite them to participate fully in the life of the church, after everyone else, everywhere else, and in the name of Christ, rejected them, drove them away, slandered them as the worst kinds of people—all of it simply due to who they are.

Jesus works miracles still in the lives of these people, people shunned and stigmatized everywhere they go in the Christian world, and yet arrive at last, as to a kind of Promised Land, where they too are invited to taste the milk and honey that flow so freely in God’s good country. To witness their experience of miracles—I felt it too, and my heart swelled in ways that were difficult for me to manage, and I understood as one of the good things of my former faith life that what I felt was nothing short of the Holy Spirit restlessly stretching its limbs to dance and celebrate inside me.