Conklin-Broad Avenue-North News

February Newsletter                         

Dear friends,
I sometimes joke that I can’t remember what I was doing five minutes ago, no less remember what I was doing a year ago! That is what it feels like every time I sit down to write my annual report to the congregation. The year 2008 was a momentous one for us filled with a few big events and many, many smaller ones that helped to shape our life together as a congregation. The Annual Report for the year ending December 31, 2008 includes a vast amount of information about many of the activities, events and statistics that mark the year we had together as a family of faith. Allow me to highlight a few of the markers that I feel were pivotal for our under standing our year past and how I see God working with us in the year ahead.

• The addition and remodeling to the Conklin building came to an uneventful conclusion. We quietly moved into our new space and continued to he the people we have always been. New ideas and dreams that have come with the additional space had ‘already begun before the move took place and more continue to come to fruition.

• Pentecost was an appropriate time to dedicate our new facilities and rededicate ourselves to the Mission of Jesus Christ in this time and place. Dan Merry inspired us as we began our adventure together.

• The merger of the two former congregations continues to bear fruit for all involved. We successfully completed our first full year of a Session and Board of Deacons each of which had representatives of all three worship services and the two venues.

• We hired Steve Chastain to be our Coordinator of Discipleship bringing with him a tremendous amount of experience and a heartfelt passion for the ministry of Jesus Christ.

• We added Scott Brewer to our staff as our Media Coordinator, upgrading our web page and helping us to learn the electronic tools of communication.

• The new Community Youth Center successfully opened and continues to minister to the young people of the Church and community.

We have much to look forward to in the year ahead. Not only are we continuing what we have already begun but we also face new opportunities and challenges in the year ahead.

• Most exciting for me is the prospect of taking a sabbatical after twenty-eight years of ministry. The Lilly Endowment has gifted us with the means to make this a reality. My family and I will be traveling and seeking to renew our lives. I need this time away more than I even realized. Loving and serving you is an honor beyond measure but us also spiritually, mentally, physically exhausting.  One of our long time members always says to me, "Pace yourself!' but I have yet to figure out how to do that.  This sabbatical allows me the opportunity to catch my breath and come back to serve you with greater energy and deeper love.

• Hopefully as exciting for you will be your spiritual renewal through this process as well. The Lilly Endowment has made resources available to the congregation to learn and to grow in my absence. Certainly you will be well cared for Pastorally in my absence but you will also enjoy some familiar faces returning to minister to you and you to them. It is our hope that this time will allow the congregation to water its roots and celebrate God’s abiding goodness, which is centered in Jesus Christ, not in Steve Starzer.

• We will need to work together to understand our role in the Building Fund to make sure that we all do our part to continue to meet all of the financial obligations of this Church. It needs to be said that we are in excellent financial shape overall! God’s Providence supplies. But it also needs to be said that the one weakness we have is in the Building Fund. I have to be honest with you and say that for a church our size this loan repayment is not that difficult. We excel in all statistical ways of measuring a church with the one exception of giving. We rank at the bottom of our Presbytery for giving per member and giving per attendee! We are at the top in every other category! If we gave the average per member (not the top but just the average) we would have enough money to pay our loan, all of our bills and double our giving to Mission! God is challenging us. Can we meet that challenge?

• I hope to bring to this congregation a program called Financial Peace University- a ministry of Dave Ramsey who is a certified financial planner and a very devoted Christian. I have come to the realization that many of our members have no ability to manage their money and that is one of the reasons why we are not more generous. This program is designed to help us to use Biblical and sound financial principles to use the resources God has blessed us with.

I’ve included a portion of the materials we wrote to obtain the grant from the Lilly Endowment. I thought you might be interested in knowing some of the thought and reasoning which has gone into this process. I look forward to your support as we move forward in the year 2009, seeking together, to be faithful to our calling as followers of Jesus Christ.

From the section on my perspectives: “I have been imbued with a strong work ethic. I began working when I was ten years old and “borrowed” my brother's name and birth certificate in order to secure a newspaper route. In the 42 years that have passed since that time, I have never been separated from work including several extended periods of time when I worked two jobs. I have come to realize that spiritually and emotionally, I am growing weary. When I did my first funeral 27 years ago, I asked my Dad, then in his third decade of ministry, “Do funerals get easier to do?” His answer has proven true, “No, they get more and more difficult because you stop burying parishioners and start to bury friends. “I have been blessed with two long-term pastorates. My first was ten years and I am now in my l7th year of my second call.  I have been greatly loved by my congregations amid I love them as well. The downside to that is their pain and sorrows become mine. It is a price I gladly pay for the privilege to love and be loved. But I also realize that I need to take care of myself in order to continue to take care of my friends.

I am grateful for the roots in hard work that my parents gave me but I now recognize that I missed another element of how I was raised. I forgot how to rest and refresh myself.  In my youth, my Father would ha ye 7-8 weeks off every summer and we would use that time to build our family, allowing my Dad to recuperate physically, spiritually and emotionally as he enjoyed his family and we enjoyed him. We were blessed by the fact that our extended family lived either on the Jersey shore or within a few miles of it. Water as a vehicle for rest, reflection and renewal is as much a part of my roots as the work ethic I have practiced. While I have nurtured my roots of hard work, I have not nurtured myself through rest, reflection and renewal.

Renewal means to nurture the roots that brought me to this place in my life. It is those roots that will sustain me for the rest of my journey. I envision a plan that is multifaceted in its approach. I want to rediscover my roots by traveling to those places and visiting those people that were pivotal to my call to ministry and my preparation to serve Jesus Christ.

A leave for me as their Pastor and a time for spiritual renewal for the congregation would be a great blessing at this time. Much like a hiker takes a rest before conquering the next mountain, the time is right for the congregation and me to be renewed from “the spring that never fails” before, together, we journey into the future that God has planned for us.”

From the section on the Congregation’s benefit: “The Lord will guide you always...” "Just as it wasn’t Moses that led the people out of slavery, nor was it Aaron, but God that led the people into the promised-land. Likewise it isn’t Steve leading the congregation. The congregation recognizes the need for this renewal to reverse the toll that intense service takes on a pastor's well-being. The Lord has always guided the ministry efforts of CPC, as we strive to strengthen our community and bring others to the Christ that we serve. To continue in His service, the congregation needs renewal. Like the nourishment of spring time rain that blossoms new life, it is our belief that both the congregation and pastor can draw from God's unending spiritual spring to bring forth inspiration and renewed strength for our edification. What will we find to be God's plan for our congregation at the end of the reflection time? In the activities we have planned, there is time for celebration and reflection on separate experiences; and shared experiences as we come back together. It is expected to be a time for all to find a deeper understanding of our commitment to the future that God has already planned for us.”
 

In Christ’s love,