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A Ministry Within the UCC?

Meeting with the Central Pacific Conference’s Covenants Ministry Team on Saturday left me feeling a bit up in the air. A good conversation all the way around. Excellent questions from a dozen or so people who make up the “gate-keeping” committee of the United Church of Christ here in Oregon. And it was an opportunity for me to be real–in a fuzzy Velveteen Rabbit sort of way–about my previous marriage, my reasons for leaving the Presbyterian Church USA and my recent cleaving, so to speak, to the United Church of Christ.

In time, I suspect, I’ll continue my ministry journey and contributions–from Presbyterian to independent to United Church of Christ–under a new and additional umbrella. But not before another conversation takes place. And not before the committee makes up its mind as to whether they’ll require an elongated “care process”–involving some period of time, with some consideration for some additional education and reflection–or a simple action granting me status.

It’s all very interesting. And I am, for the most part, patient. “God is in the details,” some folks have said. And while I’m not totally convinced of the truthfulness of that statement–the details seem so meaningless at times–there’s a benefit, I think, to our hanging in there. It was perhaps a more informed sage who said, “Good things come to those who wait.”

I’ve lived the last many years with the belief that the universe intends me good, even in the midst of the radical changes I brought to my marriage and ministry seven or eight years ago. And while my observation doesn’t always support my concluding so–the wicked don’t always perish and the righteous don’t always find themselves rewarded, despite biblical voices arguing the contrary–I can’t imagine living with anything other than that in mind.