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8473 South Howell Avenue
Oak Creek, WI 53154-0288
2011 Annual Meeting Destination: Scottsdale

Vol. 163/No. 1 March 2011
‘A busy And
fActious spirit’
Cross-grained Puritan
William Vassall
An EA s t E r rE f l E c t i o n
b y JAc k
Mbr a
o
g
w
a
n
z i n e o f t h e C o n g r e g a t i o n a l W a y
plus
our congregAtionAl
‘brAnd’—Jeff Meyers
on the faithful church
th E Hero’s Journey
A t ch u r c h cA m p
and more…
Published by the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches

2
From My Heart To Yours
Too quick to speak for God
Years ago, the New York Times ran a tribute by Arthur
Schlesinger Jr., about one of America’s most famous
theologians, Reinhold Niebuhr.
“His warnings against utopianism, messianism, and
perfectionism strike a chord today,” Schlesinger said. “We
are beginning to remember what we should never have
forgotten: We cannot play the role of God to history, and
we must strive as best we can to attain decency, clarity, and
proximate justice in an ambiguous world.”
Niebuhr had his faults—don’t we all?—but as Schlesinger
states: “There are so many more solidities among the
ephemeralities.”
I find myself going back to Niebuhr’s writings regularly.
His Gifford Lectures of the 1940s, in the midst of a world
war, were entitled The Nature and Destiny of Man. In those
lectures are powerful messages about doing the work of
Christian love, doing the work of justice, doing the work of
caring for the least and the lost in the midst of national and
international strife.
Letters
Th a n k s f o r ro u n e r T r i b u T e
received a copy of your September
I issue featuring my father, Arthur
Rouner. The cover story and interview
concerning his publication in 1960 of
The Congregational Way of Life were of
particular interest to me as a longtime
convert to Roman Catholicism.
Many of the topics discussed therein
point to our divergent views on the
nature of Christianity and Christ’s call
Thanks for doing
the story, and
getting it right.
to service in the world. Nonetheless,
I found the sum of both pieces to be a
wonderful tribute to Dad’s legacy as an
elder churchman. Thanks for doing the
story, and for getting it right.
I am concerned that Christians seem too eager to put God
in the middle of political ambitions and policies, too sure of
what God would say, too quick to speak for God. We seem to
be less actively pursuing what Jesus would do in the simplest
or most complex situations we face. We seem to have opted
for extreme oratory and behaviors instead of living so that
others may see Christ in and through us.
Reinhold Niebuhr’s writings and lectures still have power.
He had such a passion for both the history and fallibility
of human life, but also a strong conviction that even in the
midst of difficult realities, we can live humbly, decently, and
justly. May we so live.
John n. rouner
St. Louis Park, Minnesota
Po l a r i z a T i o n v i T i aT e s
h i g h e r d i a l o g u e
find the polarization apparent in Lobb’s
I article [Th e Con g r e g a T i o n a l i s T, June
2010, pp. 4-5] as to the future of the
NACCC and Bryan’s response [Th e
Co n g r e g a T i o n a l i s T, September 2010, pp.
10-11] to be fascinating. Lobb’s article
asks the right questions, while obscuring
the solutions by suggesting the dissolution
of the NACCC; Bryan calls us back to
the Bible and tradition, while obfuscating
Kevin Miyazaki
rE v. Dr. th o m A s m. ri c h A r D
Executive Secretary
the issues using the tired differentiations
of “conservative” and “liberal” theology.
The older members of our churches
don’t really care whether it is “conservative”
or “liberal,” as long as it is about Jesus
Christ. The younger members look at this
constant weirdness about “inerrancy” and
“historicity” as woefully backwards.
Those 50 and younger look at it all,
conservative and liberal, and say, “What
a waste of time and energy. Why in the
world would I want to be a part of that?”
[The question for us is:] What are we
as Congregational churches, as the inheritors
of a higher dialogue, going to do
about it?
rev. seth d. Jones
Rockland, Maine

FeaTUres
BOOKs OF InTeresT
6 “a Busy and
FaCtious sPirit”
William Vassall annoys the Puritan worthies
by Linda K. Palmer
10 Continuing tHe
ConVersation
God gave us brains for a reason!
by George Blair
12 tHe PoWer oF
tHe resurreCtion
An Easter meditation
by Jack Brown
14 an ePiC tale
The real scoop on youth camp
by Sara Penno
16 annual meeting PreVieW
What to expect in Scottsdale
22 tHe FaitHFul CHurCH
Knowing and living the
Congregational “brand”
by Jeff Meyers
5 making Haste from Babylon: The mayflower Pilgrims and Their World
reviewed by Randy Asendorf
23 america's Prophet: How the story of moses shaped america
reviewed by Burk Cree
DeparTMenTs
2 From my Heart to yours
Too quick to speak for God
2 letter to Th e Co n g r e g a T i o n a l i s T
4 relation A more rational approach
24 along the Way
26 necrology
27 Pastorates and Pulpits
28 missionary news and needs
30 net mending
Magazine of the Congregational Way
Vol. 163/No. 1 March 2011
ON THE COVER:
The flat-topped Barkhamsted Center Church,
Barkhamsted, Conn., stands tall with its
newly restored belfry tower Dec. 31, 2010.
The tower was erected two days earlier,
culminating a 22-year restoration project
for the historic 1844-45 meetinghouse,
home to the First Congregational Church
of Barkhamsted. See story, p. 24.
3
Mark Witty

4
Relation
A more rational approach
The times, Bob Dylan said, they are a-changing. And so
is Th e Co n g r e g aT i o n a l i s T.
This issue launches a modest makeover to give the
magazine a more consistent look from page 1 through page
32. Hope you like it.
Also, we are introducing a new “Subscriptions Policy” (see
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WHat is not CHanging: NACCC churches, individual
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editor
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PuBlisHer
Carrie Dahm
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lA r r y so m m E r s , Editor
The author of A Space for Faith: The Colonial
Meetinghouses of New England is named
Paul Wainwright, not “Wainright” as we
rendered it in our December 2010 review.
Everything else we said therein stands: It is
an excellent book.
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Book Review
Comet, Errand, Ocean, Compact
A tome for sure, but worth its weight in beaver pelts by Randy Asendorf
Review of Making Haste from Babylon:
The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World
by Nick Bunker
Alfred A. Knopf, 423 pages, $30.00
In Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and
their World, Nick Bunker, an Englishman with a background
in journalism and finance, looks at previously ignored evidence
to provide a fresh interpretation of the old story.
With meticulous research skills and a keen understanding of
both British and New England geography, Bunker questions
accepted truths while confirming others. Who knew that
economic and political forces on both sides of the Atlantic—
involving beaver pelts, Native American tribes, class differences,
and the rise of modern journalism—combined in 1628
to guarantee Plymouth Colony’s success? That the geography
of Maine was at least as important as that of Massachusetts?
Or that a comet seen in England in 1618 helped prompt the
Mayflower’s voyage to America in 1620?
Though religion was the main reason for emigration to
the New World, clearly it was not the only one. The anger
of Puritans at Anglican-style popery (the “Babylon” of the
book’s title) is well-chronicled. Yet it’s impossible, says the
author, to separate the Puritans’ urge for religious liberty from
politics and economics. Here was a chance to succeed free
from England’s bounds of class as well as from her strictures
upon faith. Also, life expectancy was greater away from filthy,
plague-infested England and Holland.
Nick Bunker explains that while “Calvinistic zeal was far more
important than other factors in bringing about the creation of
New England,” Bradford, Winslow, and the other Pilgrim Fathers
sometimes omitted from their narratives facts that may have
told us much more about this watershed in Western civilization.
I might quibble with Bunker’s assertion that Puritanism was
for many merely a way to achieve a rank they could otherwise not
attain. Was reaching a “gentleman’s” status so important that men
would risk their lives for it? At any rate, the work ethic that the
Puritans fostered has served America well for almost 400 years.
The Pilgrims also gave us another pillar of the American
Way: The Mayflower Compact. Bunker gives them full credit
here. Some historians have dismissed the Compact as a short,
temporary measure, later supplanted by royal decree—surely
not “the foundation stone of American democracy.” But after
carefully examining other documents of the time, Bunker concludes
that Englishmen on both sides of the Atlantic viewed it
as a fundamental and permanent source of authority, even after
the colony received a new charter from England. This is because
it depended on the vote of the governed, whereas a patent
merely came from the King. The 41 signatures represented 90
percent of the men on the Mayflower, a super-majority. William
Brewster, the probable author, didn’t insist on a religious creed
or even any statement of faith at all by the signers. Our spiritual
ancestors clearly established freedom of conscience and separation
of church and state from the start.
Making Haste from Babylon is a hugely important book for
people of our tradition, but it’s not light reading. In fact, it’s a
tome. Read it anyway for new insights about who we are, where
we came from, and where we may be going.
rA n D y As E n D o r f is a retired teacher and a
student of Congregational history and has served
the NACCC in various roles, currently as a
member of the Executive Committee. He and his
wife, Nancy, are members of the Congregational
Church of Sun City, Ariz., and co-chair the host
committee for the 2011 Annual Meeting and
Conference in Scottsdale.
5

An early map of the Massachusetts Bay area, oriented with north to the right, shows
Salem center right and Scituate, where Vassall eventually settled, at lower left.
the Great Migration of Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay
from 1630 to 1640 and its sister migration of Pilgrims
to Plimoth starting ten years earlier have been rightly attributed
to a religious motivation as their primary impetus. Both
groups were spawned by Reformation fervor spreading throughout
continental Europe in the 16th century. Englishmen who embraced
reform ranged from courageous radicals of the Separatist stripe—
impatient for a gathered church of saints and elected ministers—to
the middle way of Presbyterians and even to moderates content to
remain within the established church, bishops and all.
If this diversity existed in England from Queen Elizabeth’s
time onward, shouldn’t we expect to see it expressed in those
people who settled the Massachusetts Bay and Plimoth as
well? Indeed we should.
Separatists, who settled Plimoth, were roundly despised as
schismatics and madmen owing to their inspirer “Troublechurch”
Browne 1 . They in turn wondered what was wrong
with moderates who couldn’t see the futility of their efforts to
purify the national church from within. In vain they had been
trying for 70 years.
By the time the Arbella set sail for Salem in 1630, beginning
the Great Migration, Governor John Winthrop and the 126
adventurers of the Massachusetts Bay Company knew what
they were fleeing from but not exactly what they were going to.
The biblical commonwealth was still a dream, not a reality.
‘A busy and
factious spirit’
by Linda K. Palmer
One of these adventurers was William Vassall, a man who
embodied many characteristics of moderate Puritanism plus
an independent streak that was out of touch with many more
conventional-minded builders of the Bay. Far ahead of the
medieval mindset of the early 17th century and more typical
of the Enlightenment of the 18th, he was an anomaly among
Puritans of his day. His expectations of life in the New World
clashed with the realities put into practice by others with a
different agenda, earning him the rebuke and censure of men
he once called his friends. His resulting disillusionment with
the Puritan experiment as he saw it unfolding in Salem adds
a dimension to our understanding of early New England.
William Vassall’s involvement with the Massachusetts Bay
Company begins in early 1629 when we see his name first
mentioned in The Records of the Governor and Company of the
Massachusetts Bay in New England. Later that year he attends
a secret meeting in Cambridge, England, of a select group of
stockholders to finalize the transporting of the government and
charter of the company to Massachusetts. Possession of the
charter would make its bearers truly independent, not just of
king and bishops, but of other stockholders in London who
might not share their religious focus for the plantation. As one of
12 who signed the Cambridge Agreement, as it is known today 2 ,
Vassall pledged to sail with the Arbella fleet the following spring
with his family, thereby sealing his commitment to the venture.
The company had already sent an advance party of 200
families, servants and two ministers to Naumkeag, later named
Salem, in preparation for the exodus from England. The acting
governor of this party was John Endicott.
Very early on troubles brewed as to the form the Sunday
worship service would take. Some of the old planters, remnants
of failed settlements up and down the coast, and some of the
new, including two brothers by the name of Samuel and John
1 Robert Browne, one of several Puritans who separated entirely from the Church of England and wrote books critical of Her Majesty and the national church
that were admired and collected by the Pilgrims.
2 Not to be confused with the Cambridge Platform promulgated in Cambridge, Mass., in 1648.
6

Browne, wanted their traditional English service from the Book of Common Prayer3 .
But that was not to be. Endicott and the two ministers, the Revs. Samuel Skelton and
Francis Higginson, after conferring with the only Englishmen of any consequence
around at that time, the “first comers” (i.e., the Pilgrims), decided that the way they
worshiped in Plimoth, was the way they would do it in Naumkeag.
The Pilgrims were the remnants of the Leyden church of John Robinson, a
former devotee of Separatist Robert Browne. Over the course of forty years in
England and Holland, Robinson mellowed his once similar opinions, yet still
advocated a gathered covenanted church, separated from “the dross,” whose
members elected and ordained their own ministers.
Endicott agreed and called for “a solemne day of humiliation, for the choyce of a
pastor & teacher.” A minority of the settlement’s 200 residents met and chose the
Revs. Skelton and Higginson, by paper ballot, as pastor and teacher respectively;
the famous Salem Covenant of 1629 4 was drawn up about this same time. Thus a
fledgling Congregational church was born with drastic changes in polity and liturgy
from their mother church back home. The bishops and the Book of Common Prayer
were out, and the Browne brothers were sent back to England against their will.
The brothers petitioned the officers of the Massachusetts Bay Company back in
London to hear their case. They had put a lot of money into the Bay Company and
wanted redress for their losses. Their choice of representation was telling: William
Vassall, his brother Samuel, and William Pyncheon 5 . All three men would eventually
end up on the wrong side of the Puritan elite. At a London meeting on Sept. 29, 1629,
a meeting William Vassall did not attend, the private letters of the two brothers were
opened and it was decided that “none of the letters from Mr. Sam Browne shall be
delivered, but kept to be made use of against him as occasion shall be offered.” 6
Opening letters of potential troublemakers was common practice, first in London and
later in Boston. Leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Company wanted no negative press
about the new colony they were preparing to launch the next spring. Eleven ships had
already been purchased and decked out to carry 700 passengers to Salem. They especially
endicott and the two ministers … decided that the way they
worshiped in plimoth, was the way they would do it in naumkeag.
didn’t want the king thinking that Massachusetts was becoming a nest of Separatists.
William Vassall sailed to New England with his family April 7, 1630, perhaps on
the Arbella itself, arriving June 12 in Salem. Much to everyone’s horror they found
the fledgling colony under Endicott running out of food and negligent in planting
crops. With Salem ill-prepared to take care of itself, let alone 700 new settlers,
more than 100 destitute and starving Englishmen decided to return home with the
departing ships. On one of them—the Lyon, which Winthrop sent back to Bristol
for emergency supplies as early as July 23—sailed William Vassall and his family,
a most unusual turn of events for one who had pledged his wealth and support to
the company the summer before. 7
One wonders if it was the disease, the starvation, and the dilapidated village they found
there—in themselves plausible reasons for taking a young family back to England. But
gradually unfolding events suggest another motive, even more compelling.
The influential Rev. John Cotton (1585-1652),
who would soon emigrate to New England
himself, wrote from Lincolnshire to assure the
Rev. Samuel Skelton that the Church of England
was in fact a Reformed church and its members
worthy to receive the Lord's Supper.
The determined John Endicott sought to impose
a Separatist vision of church life on the new
Massachusetts Bay Colony.
3 Charles Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History Vol. 1 (Yale Univ. Press, 1934), 370.
4 “We Covenant with the Lord and one with an other; and doe bynd our selves in the presence of God, to walke together in all his waies, according as he is pleased
to reveale himself unto us in his Blessed word of truth.”
5 Alexander Young, ed., Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay from 1623-1636 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846
6 Ibid., 92.
7 “John Winthrop to J. Winthrop, Jr.,” Winthrop Papers Vol. 2 1623-1630, (Massachusetts Historical Society: Plimpton Press, 1931), 305.
Continued g
7
Courtesy of StanKlos.com

Gov. John Winthrop, guiding spirit of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, absorbed a
rebuke from the company's advance party
under Endicott, because he remained a
member of the Church of England.
Leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Company wanted no negative
press about the new colony they were preparing to launch the
next spring. … They especially didn’t want the king thinking
that Massachusetts was becoming a nest of Separatists.
Thomas Dudley
Vassall’s brief sojourn of six weeks was long enough for him to witness yet
another round of arbitrary exclusion on the part of the company’s ministers,
Skelton and Higginson. This time they refused the sacraments to four illustrious
new immigrants: Governor Winthrop, Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley, Isaac
Johnson, a major investor, and William Coddington, an assistant, on the grounds
they were still members of the “catholicke” church—“catholic” meaning “universal”
referring in this case to the Church of England—and as yet not members of the
small covenanted group of believers in Salem. 8
Winthrop’s journal does not mention the fact that he was refused the Lord’s
Supper along with Dudley and Coddington, both devout members of the Rev.
John Cotton’s parish church in Lincolnshire, nor the fact that the Rev. Skelton
refused to baptize Coddington’s child who had been born at sea. The omission of
such an important rebuke, which must have stung the new governor, reveals how
far the first generation was prepared to go in leniency toward a newly transplanted
church that had not yet found its footing. Thanks to another source we are aware
of this unusual circumstance. Two hundred years after it was written, a letter was
discovered in the First Church in Dorchester, Mass. It was a copy, transcribed
the Church of England, since Elizabeth’s day.
How did Cotton learn of an event that had occurred so recently? The first ship to sail
back to England was the Lyon, carrying William Vassall, which left on July 23, 1630, or
shortly thereafter. Might Vassall have carried a letter written by Coddington or Dudley
to their old pastor telling of the deed? Might Vassall himself have been the conveyor
of such disturbing news in person to the reverend? The possibility, considering his
earlier advocacy on behalf of the Browne brothers, is at least intriguing.
While the Lyon was on its way back to England, Deputy Governor Dudley was
beginning his lengthy chronicle of the plantation’s first year in a letter to Lady Bridget,
the Countess of Lincoln. He says that “others also afterwards hearing of men of their
own disposition, which were planted at Pascataway, went from us to them, whereby
though our numbers were lessened, yet we accounted ourselves nothing weakened
by their removal.” 10 Pascataway, now Portsmouth, N.H., had been colonized by Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, a staunch Anglican and a loyalist to King Charles I. Therefore,
it seems likely the disposition of the colonists there was sympathetic to the Church
of England. So we have it on Deputy Governor Dudley’s authority that some of the
settlers in the Winthrop fleet migrated very early to New Hampshire, to be among
fellow Anglicans, because they realized the Separatist nature of the new colony or at
least its antipathy to outward expressions of the king’s form of worship.
Five months later: December 1630. The terrible first summer of starvation and disease
has passed. Vassall has made it back to England. John Humphrey—the original
deputy governor, who had backed out of the voyage at the last minute—writes a
8 Slayden Yarbrough, “The Influence of Plymouth Colony Separatism on Salem: An Interpretation of John Cotton’s Letter of 1630 to Samuel Skelton,” Church
History, Vol. 51 Issue 3 (Cambridge University Press, 1982), 297.
9 David Hall, “John Cotton’s Letter to Samuel Skelton,” William and Mary Quarterly 22 (July 1965) 478-485.
10 Young, ibid., 315.
8
by the Rev. Richard Mather, of a letter
dated Oct. 2, 1630, from Cotton in
England to Skelton in Massachusetts. 9
Cotton tries to set Skelton straight by
reminding him that the men in question
were members in good standing in a
bona fide Reformed church—namely

letter to John Winthrop in Boston, in which he says that the
good people in London are convinced that the Massachusetts
Bay Company’s purpose is Separatist and asks Winthrop to
alleviate their fears and restore their “former good opinion of
the company.” 11 How were “the good people of London” privy
to news about Separatist Massachusetts in such a short time?
It was only December, six months after the Arbella had
docked in Salem. If Vassall left Salem in late July, he probably
made it back to England by mid- or late September, plenty
of time in which to spread the word around London of the
Separatist nature of the plantation. It seems logical to conclude
that Vassall, either alone or with some of the passengers from
the Lyon and other returning ships, was responsible for painting
the colony as “Separatist,” thereby causing such a stir among
future investors skittish of the seditious label. 12
The Lyon returned to Massachusetts on Feb. 5, 1631.
It contained the much-needed provisions Winthrop had
anxiously requested, plus 26 passengers and letters from
friends back home. Dudley is sorrowed by what they have
to say and continues his ongoing letter to Lady Bridget,
lamenting that “they who went discontentedly from us the
last year, out of their evil affections towards us, have raised
many false and scandalous reports against us, affirming us to
be Brownists in religion, and ill affected to our state at home,
and that these vile reports have won credit with some who
formerly wished us well.” 13 Might those people who formerly
wished them well be the “good people of London” Humphrey
wrote about in his letter to Winthrop?
It is reasonable to conclude that Vassall himself was the bearer
of such news and it is an early indication of the animosity that
was to develop between Vassall and the political and religious
establishment of the Massachusetts Bay.
Despite the ill beginning, Vassall and his family decide to
give Massachusetts another try five years later. This time he
avoids the Bay and settles just a toe into Plimoth colony in a
new town called Scituate, where he and his wife join the local
church of John Lothrop. 14
That move is significant. Plimoth colony was known for
its tolerance and liberality. Vassall spent the next 11 years
challenging autocratic voices in government and religion both
in the Bay and in Plimoth colony, prompting John Winthrop
to call him “a busy and factious spirit always opposite to the
way of our churches and civil governments.” 15
11 Andrews, ibid., 381.
12 Queen Elizabeth and Parliament had decreed Separatism a crime in 1593.
13 Young, ibid.,331.
14 For more on Lothrop’s church, see Dan McConnell, “An Early Congregational
Church Endures Persecution,” Th e Co n g r e g a T i o n a l i s T Vol. 164, No. 2
(December 2010), 12-14.
15 Richard S. Dunn, James Savage, Laetitia Yeandle, eds., The Journal of John Winthrop
1630-1649 (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996), 624.
But one man’s busy and factious spirit was another’s champion.
The first decade into the Great Migration was a heady time for
experimentation. Unconventional voices such as William Vassall,
Roger Williams, and Anne Hutchinson show a great variety of
views; and all three were challenged, albeit for different reasons,
by the likes of Thomas Dudley and John Endicott.
For Vassall or anyone else to taint the new plantation with
the charge of Separatism (no matter how much the movement
had altered itself since Robert Browne’s day) was scandalous
to many Englishmen. That it would later become the working
framework of the New England Way, Congregationalism, was
in 1630 still an untested idea.
For brevity’s sake the rest of Vassall’s long career as a maverick
in New England is omitted here. The reader is encouraged to
read Dorothy Carpenter’s account of his life, available online
at http://home.gwi.net/~sscarpen/vassall/Vassall.pdf .
li n D A k. pA l m E r is the founder and performer
of the walking tour of 17th-century Boston called
Where Did the Puritans Go? (www.puritantour.com),
in which she portrays Ann Vassall,
wife of William Vassall. She holds a Master of
Arts in Teaching from Indiana University and is
a frequent lecturer at historical societies, libraries
and academic institutions throughout New England,
including the Harvard Extension School
and the Congregational Library.
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239.334.4978
www.edisonchurch.org
9

CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION
GOd GAVE US BRAINS fOR A REASON!
The dialogue between the Rev. Dr. Doug Lobb (“A Time for
Hard Questions,” June 2010, p. 4) and the Rev. Christopher
Bryan (“Dissecting God’s Holy Word,” September 2010, p. 10) is
hardly unique in modern Christian circles, or for that matter in
modern Jewish or Muslim circles.
It is the question of how modernity,
and the way modern people understand
the world, affects the faith
handed down by the ancients.
I hesitate to call one side of this response
“liberal” and the other “conservative,”
because that makes political categories
normative for religious discussion. I’ll
use “Christian Right” and “Christian
Left,” only for convenience, and try
to keep the political positions of each
separate from the theological positions
of each.
The position which considers itself
progressive is really no more modern
than the “inerrant scriptural” position
evidently taken by Bryan. In fact,
modern fundamentalism, a version of
which is found in his article, is a 20thcentury
American phenomenon, and in
itself as modern as the most progressive
member of the Jesus Seminar.
Lobb and those of us who are
like-minded do tend to characterize
the opposition as “less modern, less
scholarly and intellectual, less scientific
and more provincial” than we; while
those of Bryan’s persuasion tend to
10
assume their opponents are “in free
fall…becoming indistinguishable from
the secular culture they live in.”
In other words, the Christian Right
is attacked as stupid and backward;
and the Christian Left as impious.
First, I identify myself unapologetically
with the Christian Left—at
least as far as theological approaches go,
though not in all cases politically. In
this article I will not attack the doctrine
of inerrancy (which I believe falls of its
own weight) or the rationality of its
adherents. But I do seek to defend here
the piety of the Christian Left, which
is unfairly attacked as “dissecting” (a
negative word in Rev. Bryan’s article)
the word of God in the Bible.
fo r m A n y p E o p l E in
t h E 21st c E n t u r y,
t h E bi b l E o p E n s u p
A m y s t E r ious A n D
f A n c i f u l w o r l D t o u s.
by George Blair
For many people in the 21st century,
the Bible opens up a mysterious and
fanciful world to us. It is a world of fairy
tales, where donkeys speak, virgins give
birth, demons inhabit human bodies,
blindness is cured by spit. It is a prescientific
world, where all of creation
happened in six days only 6,000 years
ago—a world of miracle and wonder.
It is not the world we know and live
in today.
If part of the Christian task is to
connect with the two to three thousand
years ago in which the Bible was
written, for people of a scientific bent
the Bible has to be interpreted in light of
modern scholarship, science and history.
Otherwise it seems to us to be “a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.”
But the message of Jesus has so
much more to tell us than hocus-pocus
and fairy stories. The story of Jesus is
the story of a man who stood up to
imperial power and was crucified for
his troubles. But the story refuses to
end there. All of the New Testament
was written with the conviction that
this Mediterranean Jewish peasant
was somehow alive again—the Lord
had been raised by God to eternal life,
vindicating the person and teaching of
our Savior.
And what difficult and wondrous
teaching it is: Love your enemies, pray
for those who persecute you. Judge
not, that ye be not judged. You must
be born again (or from above).

The Christian Right prefers the Gospel of John, the pseudo-Pauline epistles and
the Book of Revelation, and the Left tends to read more of the Synoptics, with
timeless wisdom like the Sermon on the Mount. The Right tries to preserve glorious
poetry as if it were ancient science; and the Left tries to save the gospel from the
fundamentalists, whose doctrines have driven many well-educated and thoughtful
people from the church.
Those of us on the Left are persuaded of the truth of the gospel with no less
feverish intensity than those on the Right. We demand for ourselves the integrity
to note the different writings of scripture not as history, but as a parable of
th E ho l y spirit D i D n o t l E A D t h E cr u s A D E s , t h E in q u i s i t i o n,
t h E sA l E m w i t c h t r i A l s, o r t h E p r o s E c u t i o n o f sc o p E s ... [it is]
t h E spirit o f t ru t h A n D f r E E i n q u i r y, w h i c h h u n G r i l y A s k s f o r
m o r E l i G h t t o b r E A k f r o m Go D’s h o l y w o r D .
the kingdom of God, ruled by the two maxims Christ himself said were most
important: Love of God, and love of neighbor. And Christ himself insisted that we
love God with all of our minds as well, and that means close reading of scriptural
passages: not to tear them apart, as the Christian Right fears, but to understand
them more deeply.
It is my vision for the NACCC that it be a church which embraces all of the
human wisdom of modern science, history, archeology, comparative anthropology
and other tools which we have to understand and expand our faith. God gave us
our brains for a reason. It is with great love of God in Jesus Christ that I learn how
God has worked through evolution, through men and women of all ages grasping
for an understanding of the holy.
It is not enough, not nearly enough, to say, “The Bible was created by the Holy
Spirit—don’t mess with it!” The Holy Spirit does not condone slavery, the silence
of women in church, or the dismissing of the humanity of our homosexual sisters
and brothers. The Holy Spirit did not lead the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem
witch trials, or the prosecution of Scopes for teaching evolution. The Spirit is the
spirit of truth and free inquiry, which hungrily asks for more light to break from
God’s holy word. There is no “God’s wisdom” or “Man’s wisdom,” as the Right
keeps putting it. There is just wisdom, the first-born of all creation, poetically
imagined as incarnated in the Christ.
And it is that risen Christ I proclaim and celebrate.
The rE v. GE o r G E E. bl A ir iii received his Master of Divinity degree
from Yale Divinity School, his law degree from the University of Connecticut,
a master’s degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Hartford, and a
bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Connecticut. He
anticipates a call from an NACCC church.
The Congregational
Foundation
People who are
passionate about
the Congregational
Way have joined
the 1620 Society by
including the NACCC
amongst their bequests.
Interested? Call Diana
at the Foundation’s office
1-800-262-1620, x25
11

12
The Power of the
Resurrection
A
couple of things intrigue me about the impact of the
Risen Christ on the early Christians. There was a
catalyzing effect that is seen in the “before and after” of
those encountered by the Risen Christ. If you look at the Gospel
of Luke, Chapter 24, you see some interesting turnarounds.
The women, returning from the tomb, report the empty tomb to
the apostles, but at first “they did not believe the women, because
their words seemed to them like nonsense” (Luke 24:11, New
International Version). Christ’s words, promises and purposes
seem like nonsense to many— until they have an encounter
with Christ; then there is a beginning of a life-altering, faithencouraging,
priority-adjusting change.
by Jack Brown
We see Doubting Thomas become Believing Thomas in and
through his encounter with Christ (John 20:26-29). We observe
Cleopas and his friend leaving Jerusalem with cold hearts, soon
having their hearts warmed in their encounter with the Risen
Lord (Luke 24:13-35).
In Mark 16:5-8, we are given a vivid picture of the followers
of Jesus before they encountered the Risen Christ—alarmed,
trembling, bewildered and afraid. That is where many of us
have been and where many, sadly, still may be. However, these
very overwhelmed folk soon have their worlds turned right-sideup,
even as they turn the world upside-down (Acts 17:6). As the
Risen Christ encounters them they become remarkable, faithful,
courageous witnesses (martyrs, in Greek).
When Christ is
alive in us we have
power beyond our
expectation and previous
experience

I have always been impressed with the Apostle Paul’s first prayer
in his letter to the Ephesians. He prays for his Christian friends
that they might know the incomparably great power that is
available to us who believe. He describes that power as being “like
the working of God’s mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ
when he raised him from the dead” (Ephesians 1:19-20, NIV).
Resurrection power can be ours, in Christ, through prayer!
I don’t know how we would express this in physics or in energy
terms—maybe something like the mad scientist in the Back to the
Future movie, as “thousands of jigawatts.”
When Christ is alive in us we have power beyond our expectation
and previous experience. Paul’s second prayer in his letter to the
Ephesians gives glory to “him who is able to do immeasurably
more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is
at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20, NIV). It is not our limited
imagination that is the issue, but the Risen Christ’s unimaginable
power to change, to lift, to bless.
When Christ comes to us and as Christ continues to come to us
in His risen state—or when we choose to come to Him—we find
in that encounter a new power to live in God-honoring, peoplehelping,
personally satisfying ways.
When we meet Christ, whether directly in some mystical way
or more indirectly through the people and events of our lives, we
find our hearts warmed and our understanding of God’s Word
and purpose in Christ clarified (Luke 24:31-35).
As we welcome and let Christ-alive-again come to us, we
discover our doubts diminished and our faith rebounding; our
fears subsided and our peace burgeoning; our sadness transformed
to joy; our hopes renewed; our service reestablished and more
effective, rewarding and blessed—as was the case with Peter and
Thomas and the women witnesses who were the first to encounter
Christ resurrected.
May Christ meet us today in our disappointments and
darkness, our defeats and dismay, and turn our dreadful nights
into a delightful dawn and dynamic new day.
th E rE v. JA c k br o w n is the minister
of Olivet Congregational Church, Olivet,
Mich., an adjunct professor at Olivet College,
and secretary of the Michigan Congregational
Conference Camp Committee and of the
Central Michigan Congregational Association.
He has written many hymn texts and
annually leads a short-term mission trip to
Misiòn Mazahua in Mexico. Jack and his
wife, Pamela, have five adult sons, one of
whom is in full-time ministry.
Remember to Live
(New Life in Christ)
[Tune: Lyons (O Worship the King), Hanover 10.10.11.11]
Remember Christ’s work—this very Good News:
Now risen, He blesses, redeems and renews.
O bless now the Lord Christ, whose great Name we raise;
Do bless Him, extol Him, remember to praise.
Remember to sing and worship always;
From ashes to beauty, our nights into days.
Rejoicing we sing out to Him who restored;
Exalting Christ’s goodness, we honor our Lord.
Remember to dance, to get off the ground;
When lame folks were healed, they leaped all around;
Our Christ is still healing, His presence is proved—
Restored souls and bodies, responding in love.
Remember to pray; do ask for Christ’s grace;
Rely on His strength when challenge you face;
In asking and seeking, in knocking by prayer,
We find Christ is faithful, were we are—He’s there!
Remember to hope, keep trusting Christ’s love;
He knows what we need, He sees from above;
If you are discouraged and downcast with woe,
Just rest in the Lord and find peace for your soul.
Remember to hear what Christ has to say;
He is still living to help us today;
If we will just listen and open our ears
We’ll hear Christ’s “Peace!” echo, it calms all our fears.
Remember to look, Christ strengthens the weak;
Consider His touch – embolding the meek;
As we focus closely we see something grand,
We see exhibitions of Christ’s helping hand.
Remember to love, to bless and to give;
Encouraging friendship helps others to live;
By sharing we’re caring, to care is to give,
And giving is loving, by loving we live.
Remember to live, to live in this hour,
To live life, and fully, by Christ’s Spirit’s power.
In dying with Jesus to sin, self and shame,
We rise up to new life; it’s for this Christ came.
13

An
EpicTale The
The story of Wisconsin
Congregational
association Camp
2010 has ended, but my
story has only begun. and i
know it’s going to be epic.
This was my fourth year coming to camp. Every year I
learn so many new things. Not only about the Bible, but
about myself, my faith, and my friends. I walked into camp
two weeks ago not knowing what to expect other than that I
was going to have an amazing time as always, and that I was
going to give my life a fresh start.
In the weeks before my arrival I was having a tough time back
in the ordinary world. Betrayal from friends, a relationship
disintegrating, and a bunch of family stress is only the
beginning of the list of problems in my life. So this fresh start
that camp offered was exactly what I needed. I said good-bye
to my parents and went and got myself settled in my cabin.
I returned to the Arrowhead room at Mt. Morris Camp
ready for worship. I was blessed to be asked earlier in the year
to sing in the praise band at camp. The band plays right before
worship twice a day. That first night of singing and worshiping
with everyone was a very relieving and uplifting feeling, and I
knew there was much more in store for all of us.
14
14
by Sara Penno
praise band, Sara Penno at lower left.
After worship every day we broke into program. The senior
high camp director was the Rev. Doug Gray. Program this
year was about a journey—an epic hero’s journey, to be
specific. To better relate it, we used movie clips as examples
of each part of the journey one has to take to finish on top. I
learned about the book that tells the story of the greatest epic
hero ever: The Bible.
But that wasn’t the only thing we focused on . We broke
into small groups right after program twice a day. During
that time we were able to tell our own stories, making us
heroes on our own journeys.
My life when I left for camp, I realized later in the week,
was in the “belly of the beast.” It’s the point in the story where
you think you are never going to come out alive. Throughout
the week we learned about the other chapters in our story,
the different points we have to make it through during our
journeys, but you do realize this is camp. Not school. There
are so many things to do.
You could swim, hike, or play ultimate Frisbee. You ate
delicious food generously prepared by the volunteer kitchen
staff. You may have received a letter or a package which
then also might have led to a dunk in the pool after dinner.
You could learn how to play WCA’s favorite card game,
“sheepshead.” You could have played some basketball, made
arts and crafts. You sang every night right before emotional
campfires. The list goes on and on.
The most important thing we did at camp, though, was
make new friends. Kids from all around Wisconsin and a
couple from Illinois. Meeting and getting to know all of

"The most important thing we did at camp, though, was make new friends."
these new and amazing people gives you the allies, sidekicks,
and mentors one needs to complete a journey.
Every day we spent at camp added to the story of WCA
Camp 2010, no matter how tiny or large the detail was.
Things happened unexpectedly adding excitement, like the
tornado and severe storm warnings Wednesday night. I don’t
know how long we all sat around together singing in the
basement. What I do know is that that experience brought us
closer together and added to the story.
Friday, our last full day, crept up quickly. Everyone was
tired yet anxious for the festivities of the night to begin. After
an emotional last program and small group session, free time,
lunch, FOB (“feet-on-bunk” designated rest period), and
organized activities, all of camp started getting ready for the
banquet and pictures. Everyone was in their Sunday best.
Dinner and pictures passed by fast and then it was time for
the last worship. The last time the band was up performing.
I got up there and looked around. I expected the singing
to be just a bitter-sweet moment, but it was way more than
that. Have you ever felt, in one moment, that everything
was perfect? That it was the way life is supposed to be? That’s
how I felt singing with everyone that night. The atmosphere
was intense and electrifying. I had goose-bumps running up
and down my arm. Everything felt so perfect, and natural.
Some epic heroes from Wisconsin plunge into
the next phase of their journey, July 2010.
I couldn’t stop smiling. That feeling lasted through
the deck party, which I must say was the best deck
party camp has seen in years. Everyone was having
so much fun.
The high started wearing off as I started realizing
that this amazing week was almost over. By morning,
the feeling was gone. It was time to pack up and leave.
Leave the extraordinary world, the friends, the place, and the
physical aspects of what makes camp, camp. But we got to
take incredible memories and lessons home.
So the story of WCA Camp 2010 has ended. It had its ups
and downs. It was exciting the whole way through, as any
good story should be. The campers came out on top.
We returned with “the Elixir.”
Even though we know it’s over, we also know that we can
start a whole new story starting July 10, 2011. Until then we
must continue our own stories in the ordinary world, back in
reality. I came out of the belly of the beast alive because camp
pulled me through it.
I know that my life is going to have its ups and downs. One
day I’m sure I’ll be back in the belly of the beast. But at the
end of all of our stories, we will return with the Elixir back to
Heaven to be with God—the One who wrote our life stories
and made each one of us a hero in His eyes.
sA r A pE n n o is a sophomore at Cedarburg
High School, Cedarburg, Wis. She is a member
of North Shore Congregational Church, Fox
Point, Wis., and participates in the youth group
at Ozaukee Congregational Church in nearby
Grafton. Sara performs as one of the lead vocalists
in her praise band at church and hopes to
become a youth minister.
15
Doug Gray

National Association of
Congregational Christian Churches
57th Annual Meeting
16
Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort
Scottsdale, Arizona
Saturday, June 18 through Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Over the years I have attended at least 20 Annual Meetings and Conferences.
Every one of them gave me something to bring back to my church and its
people. Far more often than not, good things.
This year in Scottsdale we will continue to make some things new. Of course there
is the business of the association to conduct. There will also be time for fellowship,
renewing ties with people we see only once a year. There will be more time to meet
and greet the people in the Resource Room and find more inspiration for our church’s
spiritual and communal work. And time to see Scottsdale, a place with great shopping,
restaurants, entertainment, and gracious Arizonans waiting to meet and welcome you
to their part of our nation.
So plan to attend and bring the family. There is much to see and do before and after
the conference. It is truly a time for Congregationalists to gather in fellowship, in the
name of the Christ we worship and serve. See you there!
Joe clarke
Moderator
2011 Meeting
Keynote speaker:
th E rE v. JA m E s ow E n s
Senior Pastor
First Congregational Church
Zephyrhills, Fla.
Bible lecturer:
th E rE v. Dr. mA r vA DAw n
Teaching Fellow in Spiritual
Theology, Regent College
Vancouver, B.C.
Congregational lecturer:
th E rE v. Dr. mi c h A E l ch i t t u m
Senior Pastor
First Congregational Church
Salt Lake City, Utah

Arrive a day early for an off-site Quiet Day, Congregational Spiritual Partnerships
meeting, and Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game Friday, June 17!
GATHERINGS AND MEAL EVENTS
• Congregational Spiritual Partnerships Meeting • Editor’s Round Table Dinner
• AMCO/ICF Dinner • DFM and CFTS Reception
• Missionary Society Reception • Women in Ministry Gathering
• Committee for Continuation of CCC Breakfast • Retired Ministers Breakfast
• Missionary Society Dinner • Congregational Foundation Donors Gathering
• Intentional Transitional Ministers Breakfast • CFTS Worship and Graduation
• Congregational Society of Classical Retreat Guides Meeting
WORKSHOPS
• TECH Reach • How to Advance Your Congregation by Retreating
• Singing Meditation • Generational Ministry
• Living Wisely and Successfully with Non-Christians • Stories from Your Missions
• The Winning Shot: Photographing for Publication • Ethical Decisions at the End of Life
• Features and Squibs: Writing for Th e Co n g r e g aT i o n a l i sT • Testimonies!
• Employee Discipline, Corrective Action, and Termination
• The Changing Paradigms of Ministry, CFTS, and You
• The Pastoral Search Process: Bringing Churches and Clergy Together
SPIRITUAL EVENTS
June 17 all day—Quiet Day
June 18 p.m.—Vespers/Evensong
Welcome session for all first-timers, June 18
Business sessions, June 18, 20, 21
Communion service, workshops, and Desert Botanical Gardens tour Sunday, June 19
“Cowboy Cookout” closing banquet Tuesday night, June 21
June 19 a.m.—Dawn Devotions, Prayer Breakfast, Communion
Service at Congregational Church of Sun City
June 20 a.m.—Dawn Devotions p.m.—Vespers/Evensong
June 21 a.m.—Dawn Devotions
Congregational Church of Sun City
17

Desert Botanical Gardens
18
SPECIAL
EVENTS
Arizona Diamondbacks vs.
Chicago White Sox baseball game
Mariachi Band
Tour of Desert Botanical Gardens
The All-Star Band
“Cowboy Cookout” closing banquet,
Pinnacle Peak Patio Steakhouse
POST-MEETING
TOURS
Join fellow Congregationalists on one of the
following post-trips being offered by Bell Travel
of Sun City:
Sedona and the Grand Canyon
(2 days, 1 night at the Canyon)
Sedona, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley,
Lake Powell, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon
(7 nights)
See details at http://207.250.141.49/yearbook/
annualmeeting_2011.aspx
Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort
Pinnacle Peak Patio Steakhouse
YOUTH
MEETINGS
National Association of Pilgrim Fellowship
(NAPF) and Heritage of Pilgrim Endeavor
(HOPE) Youth Conference
“By Faith” based on Hebrews 11
Saturday, June 25 through
Thursday, June 30, 2011
NOTE: This year, the NAPF/HOPE conference is
ONE WEEK LATER than the NACCC Annual Meeting.
Arizona State University in Phoenix/Tempe
Two days of Mission Work/Phenomenal Speakers/
Fabulous Friendships
For information and registration: http://www.naccc.org/
Youth/YouthConferences.aspx

Sun City All Stars
Come to the
Valley of the Sun
The NACCC’s Annual Meeting and Conference for 2011 will be held at the
lovely Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz., June 18-21.
Located in the heart of Scottsdale, this 22-acre hotel and conference facility is
conveniently close to world-class shopping, dining, golf and Old Town Scottsdale, and
just 20 minutes from Sky Harbor International Airport.
The evening before the meeting starts, join us for an optional trip to Chase
Field to see inter-league play between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago
White Sox. We’ll travel by bus to the ballpark in downtown Phoenix and proceed
to our reserved seats with plenty of time to buy your peanuts and Cracker Jack.
Saturday evening we’ll be treated to a mariachi band. Fuego Del Sol is a group
of experienced and talented young people from the area who play with the passion
and dedication it takes to perform Mexico’s most cherished style of music.
Sunday’s communion service will be held at the Congregational Church of Sun
City. Buses will take us to where members of the church will be waiting to welcome
everybody to their place of worship. Afterward, enjoy their hospitality and get to
know some of the members of this fine church.
Sunday evening there’s an optional trip to the Desert Botanical Gardens, a short
distance from the resort. If there is only one thing you have time to see, it should
be this diamond in the desert, the only botanical garden in the world devoted to
desert plants.
Bring your dancing shoes because Monday evening’s entertainment is provided
by the Sun City All Stars. This big band has been entertaining people of the area
for over 20 years. Perhaps you remember listening to them in Costa Mesa. This
time we’ll not just listen, but dance to their music as well.
Our closing banquet will be held a short distance away at the Pinnacle Peak
Patio Steakhouse. Tucked away in the foothills of the McDowell Mountains, the
restaurant has been in operation since 1957. Pinnacle Peak has a “no necktie”
policy. It is strictly enforced by the servers who will cut off your tie and pin it to
the ceiling if you are so bold as to wear one into the restaurant. You’ll find that over
a quarter of a million ties have been collected. If you want to be a part of history
and decor, wear a tie you no longer want. We’ll have our own room where there
will be a band playing and we’ll even have line dancing. But be sure to wander
through the whole restaurant to take in its rustic charm.
Trips are being offered, too. Wrap up your visit to Arizona by joining fellow
Congregationalists on one of the tours being offered by Bell Travel, owned by
Butch Bowman, a member of the Congregational Church of Sun City.
—Randy and Nancy Asendorf, Co-chairs, 2011 Annual Meeting Host Committee
19

The
Above: Using their famous Golden Arches, McDonald's has communicated
their brand to America.
Right: A New England meetinghouse–in this case, First Congregational
Church of Hanson, Mass.–is emblematic of our brand, but are the
ingredients of Congregationalism as well-known as those of a Big Mac?
Larry Sommers Church
by Jeff Meyers
Successful organizations give attention to their brand. There are several brands
that are easily recognizable in america. my children could recognize mcdonald’s
golden arches before they could read. ask most adults what the ingredients are to
the Big mac and, remarkably, they will tell you the ingredients in this order: “two all-beef
patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.” mcdonald’s
has intentionally communicated their brand to america.
20
Jean Lewis

Ask someone what it means to be a
member of a Congregational church and
you discover there are a lot of different
answers. The church of my childhood was
a Congregational Church. I have been an
ordained Congregational minister for 25
years. One of the biggest challenges for
the average Congregational church today
is defining what it means to be a Congregational
church!
How do we define what it means to be
a Congregational church? One way to
discover a definition of a Congregational
church is to look at some of the writings of
Congregationalists—in particular to look
at a few of the Congregational manuals
that were written to explain the principles
of Congregationalism. The first manual
I ever owned I purchased at a yard sale.
Since then I have made a habit of collecting
these interesting books written
by such people as: John Mitchell, George
Punchard, John Le Bosquet, and Thomas
C. Upham.
These manuals provided a concise,
Biblical, and visionary definition of a
Congregational church. These definitions
were the ones commonly accepted
during a time of remarkable growth
in the Congregational churches. The
influence of these definitions is still
experienced today.
George Punchard writes a definition
that embraces the foundational, distinctive
principles of Congregationalism:
“Congregationalism is that system
of church government, in which the
Scriptures are recognized as the only infallible
guide respecting church order and
discipline;—and which maintains, that,
according to the Scriptures, a church is a
company, or congregation, of professed
Christians, who, having voluntarily covenanted
and associated together to worship
God and to celebrate religious ordinances,
are authorized to elect necessary officers, to
discipline offending members, and to act,
authoritatively and conclusively, upon all
appropriate business, independently of the
control of any person or persons whatsoever”
(Punchard, 1844, p. 29).
This visionary definition of a Congregational
church is simple and yet comprehensive
in its wording. It contains the
main principles of Congregationalism.
1) scripture is the infallible guide of
church order and discipline. Historically,
the churches of the Congregational way
have acknowledged Scripture to be God’s
Word. It was a desire to be like the church
in the New Testament that shaped the
Congregational churches.
One of the interesting things about
Congregational churches is their understanding
that we are always learning what
Scripture has to say. Each generation has
to learn from the previous generation and
apply what the Scripture says to their
generation. I appreciate the following
statement by Art Rouner:
The Bible “is the book which our fathers
intended to be the guide of our Way. Because
only here can we meet our Christ;
only here can we meet Him in all His fullness
and know in our hearts the Truth that
‘Jesus is Lord!’” (Rouner, 1960, p. 103).
2) a church is a voluntary association.
This principle of Congregationalism has
been widely adopted by churches in
America. In America the government does
not support a particular denomination.
Religion is a matter of individual choice.
Individuals have the freedom to join a
local church. They also have the freedom
to not join a local church. They can even
make the decision to leave one church and
join a church down the street
Continued g
sourCes
Mitchell, J. A Guide To The Principles And Practice of the Congregational Churches of New England: With a Brief
History of the Denomination. Northampton: J. H. Butler, 1838.
Punchard, George. A View Of Congregationalism, Its Principles and Doctrines, The Testimony of Ecclesiastical
History in Its Favor, Its Practice and Its Advantages. Andover: Allen, Morrill and Wardwell, 1844.
Rouner, Arthur A. The Congregational Way of Life. Hammond Publishing Company, 1960.
The idea of the
church being a
voluntary association
is not about
consumer choice.
It is really about
building loving
relationships.
21

The idea of the church being a voluntary
association is not about consumer
choice. It is really about building loving
relationships. The church is a place where
broken people can come and find hope,
addicted people can find healing, lonely
people can be reconnected with other
people, and where we can humbly engage
in truth telling.
3) a church is composed of professed
Christians. The church developed a very
simple means to determine if an individual
was a professing Christian. The elders
would ask an individual who wanted to
join the church to describe their walk with
God as part of the membership process.
I remember the day I met with our
church board to give my profession of
faith. I knew the people on the board.
They were neighbors and friends of my
family. They had been my Sunday School
teachers, my Vacation Bible School teachers,
my youth group leaders, and my camp
counselors. They asked me a few questions.
This was not a difficult experience.
It was an important spiritual exercise.
It is the privilege and joy of a local
church to encourage the spiritual growth
and formation of an individual.
4) a church is formed around a
Covenant. The Congregational church is
formed around a covenant. The covenant
is usually a brief and simple statement accepted
by all the members. The emphasis
of the covenant is practical in nature. The
covenant allows Christian people to bind
themselves together as a church and still
allows them the freedom to affirm a variety
of Christian creeds and statements of
faith. This choice to emphasize a covenant
rather than a creed was due to the recognition
that the devotion of the heart was
deeper than the assent of the intellect.
There is a trend among Congregational
churches to replace their covenant with a
purpose statement or a series of core values.
This trend shows a lack of understanding
of the basic nature of a Congregational
church. The covenant emphasis is upon
22
relationship. It emphasizes our loving relationship
with God and with one another.
The covenant is God’s idea to help people
to connect with authentic community.
5) The purpose of the church is to
worship god and celebrate religious
ordinances. Ray Ortlund, the former
senior pastor of Lake Avenue Congregational
Church, Pasadena, Calif., constantly
reminded those who knew him that worship
in a Congregational church is priority
one. Congregational Churches emphasized
simplicity. The prayers were to be extemporaneous
and from the heart. Preaching was
in a plain style. The scripture was read. The
plain meaning of the text was given followed
by an application of the text to daily living.
The singing of songs and hymns was the
singing of the church’s theological convictions
by every member of the congregation.
There are two Ordinances: Baptism and
the Lord’s Supper. Congregational communion
order was characterized by a double
consecration, that is, a separate consecration
of the bread and of the wine.
6) a local church is autonomous. By
this it is meant the church is authorized
to elect necessary officers, to discipline
offending members, and to act, authoritatively
and conclusively, upon all appropriate
business, independently of the control
of any person or persons whatsoever.
To bring a balanced approach to church
relationships, the Congregational churches
have emphasized freedom and fellowship.
The emphasis on freedom says the local
church is a whole church. “It is complete in
itself, and competent to all the acts which
it is proper for a church to do” (Mitchell,
1838, p. 42). This means the local church
can call its own minister, elect its officers,
conduct its business, and own its property.
On the other hand there is an emphasis
on fellowship. “The Congregational communion
... is a band of related Christian
families; bound together by oneness of
faith, affection, and aim; having the Bible
for their common directory, and Christ for
their common head” (Mitchell, 1838, p. 43).
If Congregational churches are to have
an influence in our communities, then
each local church needs to handle its own
affairs with competence and integrity. In
addition the local church needs to work
cooperatively with other like-minded
churches in promoting the Christian faith.
The Old Testament records the story of good King Josiah. In the eighteenth year
of his reign the high priest discovers the book of the law in the house of the Lord.
We are told that Josiah was very moved when the book of the law was brought
to his attention. In 2 Kings 23:2 we are told he assembled all the people, both
small and great, and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the
covenant, which was found in the house of the Lord. On that day the King and
the people made a covenant to put into practice the re-discovered principles that
were written in the book.
The story of the Congregational churches is similar. The principles that were
effective in growing our churches and influencing our society in the past need to be
re-discovered. The application of these principles will help us to be a faithful church
in our present society.
The rE v. JE f f mE y E r s is pastor of the First Union Church, Cedarville,
Mich., an independent church. He was ordained in the Conservative
Congregational Christian Conference and has served three churches during
his 25 years of ministry. His passion is to revitalize existing churches by
understanding how God has worked in their history. His library includes
many original Congregational works.

Book Review
A String of Remindings
Riding along on a discoverer’s journey by Burk Cree
Review of America’s Prophet:
How the Story of Moses Shaped America
by Bruce Feiler
Harper Perennial, 384 pages, $14.99
I long have encountered, with glancing blows, books which
I thought were not for me, only to find myself utterly wrong.
In point of fact, my library is made up mostly of volumes like
that. Add another to the list.
We have need of a book such as this. For it is a reminder.
Indeed, it is all reminding, remembering, recalling. And we
continuing Congregationalists get early and high credit for
our own Pilgrim forebears at Plymouth.
Bruce Feiler makes a nice and much-needed argument for
our heritage of freedom, and he does so by linking our nation
all the way back to the very beginnings with the Mayflower
Pilgrims, and from there back to Moses and that first Exodus.
He reminds us of much; but, surely, is there not much that
we need to be reminded of? Indeed this book—ten chapters
in more than 350 pages—is simply a long “String of Pearls” of
remindings: The Pilgrims and their great Exodus to the New
World; the birth of our nation (with the Liberty Bell) and
George Washington as an American Moses; slavery and the
Civil War (with much about our Beechers) and Moses-like
Father Lincoln; the Underground Railroad, the Statue of
Liberty with its Masonic elements, the more recent civil rights
struggles, the celluloid Mosaic creations of Hollywood—and
in this latest edition, even a new chapter on the great evangelist
George Whitefield.
Was it not Winston Churchill who said that knowledge is
of two kinds? The first is, simply, “knowing something”; the
second, knowing where I can find the knowledge, which I don’t
now have. This entire book is about that second kind of knowledge.
Mr. Feiler allows us to tag along with him as he goes out
in search of knowledge; the book is the story of his collecting,
from here and there, the stuff which makes up the book. It is a
clever way of going at things. It is not really a trick or a stunt, it
is the way he has chosen to teach us.
And with our journey along the author’s path, we discover
what he discovers, we stumble on to what he stumbles on to,
we learn what he learns, and we witness as knowledge jumps
over from Mr. Churchill’s second category into the first. It
is a warm feeling he causes us to feel, as we learn this new
knowledge along with him through many searches.
Bruce Feiler is a popular writer with a large following and is
known to many through his PBS, NPR, CNN and Fox News
appearances. He writes from the perspective of a believing and
practicing Jew; and he tells how the Acts of Remembering are
central to his faith, back to Moses, “America’s Prophet.” In doing
so, he reminds us how essential is the very same for us and
our own faith and belief. Thank you, Mr. Feiler.
bu r k E r t cr E E is a Congregationalist living and working in Zurich,
Switzerland.
Web savvy ministry
Center for Congregational leadership
olivet, Michigan
Workshop—Saturday, March 19, 2011,
9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• Technology and its impact on ministry
• Social media—forms of communication
• Web sites that work
• Ethics and policies
• Build your own Web site
• Set up a Facebook account
• Meeting rooms and document sharing
seminar Cost:
$ 20, includes lunch
Contact rev. dr. Betsey mauro
bmauro@naccc.org; 800-262-1620, ext. 12 or 269-749-7228
23

Marie Bouchard
Along the Way
News of local churches, state and regional
associations, and individual Congregationalists
lasting legaCy—The Center for
Congregational Leadership has received
a gift of approximately 5,000 volumes
from the professional library of rev. dr.
arvel m. steece.
The rev. mike Fales, rev. Jack Brown,
Blake Walters, Jean Paul Cortes, and
Frank Palacios traveled from Olivet
College to pick up the collection, arriving
Jan. 4 in Florence, Mass., where they
stayed overnight and enjoyed fellowship
with the Rev. Irv Gammon and his wife.
The next morning the crew, augmented
by Gammon, drove a U-Haul to the
Steece home in Shelburne Falls, Mass.,
and spent the day packing books under
the watchful eye of Dr. Steece, 89, a
famously genial and erudite keeper of the
Congregational Way.
“We all learned a lot that day about
history, hymnology, special authors,
publishers, and Arvel’s vast knowledge
of the NACCC,” said Gammon.
A flat wooden roof crowns the newly restored belfry
tower of Barkhamsted Center Church.
24
Mike Fales
Arvel M. Steece with his books.
The collection of pastoral, theological,
and historical works, to be known
as the Arvel M. and Kathleen Steece
Theological Collection, is now owned
by the Center but will be housed,
catalogued and managed by the Burrage
Library at Olivet College, according to
the rev. dr. Betsey mauro, dean of the
Center. Once catalogued, most volumes
will be available for circulation, while
others will be available at the Center for
research purposes.
CroWn oF glory—First Congregational
Church, Barkhamsted, Conn.,
capped a long and painstaking restoration
of its historic meetinghouse, known as
Barkhamsted Center Church (see this
issue’s front cover), by erecting the newlyrestored
belfry tower on Dec. 29, 2010.
The new belfry tower was built by Pierce
Builders, Inc., of Granby, Conn.
The church started the project more
than 20 years ago. The meetinghouse
was placed on the State Register of
Historic Places in 1988 and became part
of the Barkhamsted Center Historic
District in 1999.
The restoration of the belfry tower
has been financed in part by the State
of Connecticut utilizing State Bond
Funds administered by the Connecticut
Commission on Culture and Tourism.
All work is in conformance with the
Secretary of the Interior’s Guidelines for
Historic Buildings.
The entire restoration project was
also supported by two separate loans
from the Fellowship of Connecticut
Congregational Christian Churches.
Members of the church’s Restoration
Committee over the 22 years of the
project were Bonnie Boyle, leslie
Cosgrove, Harriet Winchenbaugh,
and the late Pat Pasqualucci.
The church’s interior was also repainted
with historic colors, and that work,
overseen by Janet Bailey and performed
by Jim Parrott, was completed just
before the erection of the tower.
“First Congregational Church is the
largest and most prominent building
remaining in the village [part of which
was lost in the creation of a reservoir
early in the 20th century],” according to
a note from Greg Farmer, circuit rider
for the Connecticut Trust for Historic
Preservation. “The church members are to
be commended for continuing to preserve
and utilize the historic 1844-45 building.
The completion of the upper stage of
the belfry returns a missing element and
restores the balance and classical beauty
of the Greek Revival-style building.”
Pilgrim marCH—First Congregational
Church of Naples, Fla., finds its own
ways of holding the banner high in a region
unaccustomed to Congregational churches.
On Sunday, Nov. 21, 2010, the rev. les
Wicker and about 30 members marched
through town in traditional “Pilgrim” garb.
Wicker and rick scott, beating a drum
with a wooden spoon, led congregants down
Immokalee Road, drawing the attention of
passers-by. The Sunday sermon focused on
the Pilgrims and included a dialogue with
Wicker in the role of Governor William
Bradford and Peter Tallman playing Miles

Lance Shearer
Harriet Tallman sings "Come, Ye Thankful People,
Come" in Pilgrim garb at the Naples church.
Standish. The Nov. 22 Naples Daily News
carried a long report on the observance.
raising tHe rooF—Youths at
First Congregational Church of Portland,
Mich., built a barn in the church’s
fellowship hall Nov. 14.
It was a one-quarter scale model of
an “English threshing barn” erected in
Illinois in 1842. Created for the October
2010 Timber Framers Guild conference
at Montebello, Quebec, it then went on
tour as a hands-on learning experience.
“We were the first in Michigan to undertake
the task,” reported the church’s pastor,
rev. dr. marilyn danielson. “The kids
were instructed in the tooling for the
task, different kinds of woods, measuring
techniques, and teamwork skills.”
The congregation also had to measure
the fellowship hall to make sure the
model would fit under the hanging
light fixtures. Barn timbers arrived in a
trailer from the National Barn Alliance.
Church members lugged them inside
and construction began.
“It was quite an experience for our
youth ranging from ages 10-18, and a
truly remarkable experience for our adults
who lent a hand lifting and wedging
beams with the kids as the barn began
to take shape,” Danielson reported. The
barn was raised in three hours and stood
on display for four days before being
dismantled and shipped to Michigan
State University for its next raising.
Centennial in CaliFornia—
First Congregational Church of Salida,
Calif., celebrated its 100th anniversary on
Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010.
Pastor Kevin roach preached on
“The Unchanging Legacy,” challenging
the church to continue its 100-year
tradition of combining faith with action.
The morning service was followed by
lunch, which in turn led to a service of
celebration and dedication. The rev.
John Carson, associate executive secretary
of the NACCC, preached a
message of “Anniversary Advice” to the
church. Then Carson and Moderator
Dave Baker presided over Rev. Roach’s
official installation as pastor of the church.
diane suzuki headed planning for the
celebration, with “guiding spirit” anna lee
Portland, Mich., youths raise a one-quarter scale barn in the church's fellowship hall.
Jean Lewis
Prickett and fellow committee members
Janna lou Baker, Cindy Beynon,
ginny Byrum, and elainetindle.
The church goes into its next 100 years
united as “A family of God, planted by faith,
rooted in love, growing though grace.”
Don Bliss speaks at the Youth
Ministry Convocation.
youtH ministry ConVo—
“What does it mean to be a youth growing
up and living in a postmodern society?”
That is one of the questions addressed at
the Youth Ministry Convocation held at
First Congregational Church of Hanson,
Mass., Oct. 28-30.
The convocation featured the revs.
dr. Bill Fillebrown, don Bliss, aaron
goodro, and Jamie green, and focused
on characteristics of the postmodern
culture, profiles of postmodern youth,
and the role of technology in everyday life.
Attendees came from all over the country.
There are many challenges for those
growing up these days; perhaps the biggest
is the widespread belief that there is no
ultimate or absolute truth. Many feel no
one religion is correct; they believe that bits
and pieces of various Eastern and Western
religions are valid and true. Many people
are also skeptical of science.
It is also important to understand
the needs of the postmodern society.
Postmodernists need to be loved and
accepted for who they are. The youth of
the postmodern society do not fit into
a mold; they have different cliques and
social groups they identify with and are
25

accepted in. It is important to understand
who each individual is and how they can
use their unique skills within the group.
They want to be part of a community
where faith is modeled and exemplified,
where serving is hands-on and makes a
tangible difference.
After we understand the challenges
and needs, we need to look at the power
of art, media, and technology in the lives
of youth today. With social networking
sites, cell phones, television, Internet, and
Necrolog y
Jack Mason
“… Jack Mason, 69… died in his sleep Oct. 28 [2010]
in his tent in the woods,” wrote Marney Rich Keenan in a
long and respectful, if belated, obituary featured Jan. 26 in
The Detroit News (http://detnews.com/article/20110126/
OPINION03/101260341/ ).
Mason was close to Pilgrim Congregational
Church, Bloomfield
Hills, Mich., for about 15 years until
his death. He was an intensely private
man who owned only “the clothes on
his back, his duct-taped Bibles and his
rock collection,” wrote Keenan.
“Jack honored both the Old Testament
and the Christian Bible, so whatever he did, it was
biblically inspired,” said the Rev. Jack Brown, former pastor at
Bloomfield Hills. “His joy and contentment was simplifying
everything. He even said he was going to drop the ‘C’ out of
his name because it was redundant.”
The quest for simplicity led Mason to dwell in the library
of the church building; in the rafters of the church’s
unheated garage; in a lean-to of branches in someone’s back
yard, adjacent to the church; and finally in a tent on private
property a mile from the church, at the invitation of the
owner “after she’d spotted him several times in her backyard,
praying,” according to Keenan’s article.
The article quoted Chuck Steffens, the suburban church’s
former moderator: “I vividly remember one wintry Sunday
morning, when I shook his ice-cold hand and he replied,
26
Along The Way Continued from page 25
advertisements everywhere, media is one
of the most powerful—and dangerous—
forces influencing young people. In
today’s society, media has replaced the
Bible and other traditional resources.
Church is no longer the sole place to
learn about religion. The world seems
like a smaller place because of the ease
of connecting with peers from around
the world. It is important to be educated
in the culture and be aware of the great
possibilities that media and technology
‘Praise God for the cold!’ It wasn’t, ‘Praise God for the
warmth of the church building,’ but ‘Praise God for the cold!’
People say ‘It’s so great your church took care of him,’ but
Jack taught us more than we ever taught him. He brought
out the best in us—in the Christian sense.”
Nearly 200 mourners paid their respects at a memorial
service for Mason.
“Suffice to say that he was a minister's minister
and a great friend,” said Freud.
J. Robert Johnson
John Robert Johnson, 69, passed away
Jan. 27 in Madison, Wis., almost a
year after suffering a severe head injury
in a fall. Bob was born May 6, 1941, in
Freeport, Ill., and grew up in Madison,
where he co-owned and operated Print
and Mail Advertising for 35 years.
can present in reaching young people,
but it is also important to know the
drawbacks and limitations.
In the end, convocation attendees
were equipped with the tools to better
reach youth and the foundational
knowledge to dive even deeper into the
study of postmodern culture and what
that truly means.
—Kristin Lewis, Faith Community
Church, Franklin, Wis.
He was a charter member of Heritage
Congregational Christian Church and
served the church in many roles, including as moderator
and head usher. He was also active in the Wisconsin
Congregational Association, served on the NACCC
Financial Stewardship Committee from 1988 to 1991, and
through his business mailed Th e Co n g r e g a T i o n a l i s T for a
number of years.
He is survived by his wife of 41 years, Barbara, as well as
four children and two granddaughters.

Pastorates and Pulpits
Recent calls
First Union Congregational Church of
Quincy, Ill., has called the Rev. Stephen
Bounds as associate pastor.
Immanuel Congregational Church of
Concord, N.H., has called the Rev.
Jonathan Colegrove as intentional
transitional minister.
Spring Green Community Church, Spring
Green, Wis., has called the Rev. Kendall
Harger as senior minister.
Rossmoor Pilgrim Congregational Church
of Walnut Creek, Calif., has called the Rev.
Dr. Daryl Clemens as senior minister.
Faith Community Church, Franklin,
Wis., has called the Rev. Stu Merkel as
senior minister.
Robbins Memorial Congregational Church,
Greenfield, Mass., has called the Rev.
Arthur Wright as senior minister.
Big Woods Congregational Church,
Warrenville, Ill., has called Pastor Lynn
Cate as senior minister.
Mayflower Congregational Church, Laguna
Hills, Calif., has called the Rev. Warren
Angel as senior minister.
First Congregational Church of Mansfield,
Ohio, has called the Rev. Eric Britcher as
intentional transitional minister.
North Congregational Church of
Farmington Hills, Mich., has called the
Rev. Mary E. Biedron as senior minister.
Goshen Congregational Church, Goshen,
Mass., has called Pastor Andrew Berryhill
as senior minister.
Holiday Island Community Church,
Holiday Island, Ark., has called the Rev.
Dr. John R. Wallace as senior minister.
First Congregational Church of Wayne,
Mich., has called the Rev. William Lange as
intentional transitional minister.
ORDInatIOns
First Congregational Church of Tonganoxie,
Kan., ordained the Rev. Jamie Bonnema
for ministry, with concurrence of a vicinage
council, Oct. 23, 2010.
Plymouth Congregational Church, Lansing,
Mich., ordained the Rev. David Bandfield
for ministry, with concurrence of a
vicinage council, Nov. 14, 2010.
East Market Street United Church of Christ,
Akron, Ohio, ordained the Rev. Deborah F.
Rhinesmith for ministry, with concurrence
of a vicinage council, Nov. 21, 2010.
Church in the Cove, Beverly, Mass.,
ordained the Rev. Jane Milaschewski for
ministry, with concurrence of a vicinage
council, Jan. 8, 2011.
Somerset Congregational Church, Somerset,
Mich., ordained Pastor Lucas Miller for
ministry, with concurrence of a Jan. 22
vicinage council, Jan. 30, 2011.
In seaRch
• SENIOR MINISTERS
First Congregational Church
Burlington, Iowa
First Congregational Church
Wayne, Mich.
First Congregational Church
Fall River, Mass.
First Congregational Church
Anchorage, Alaska
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Morgan Scott Project volunteers package seeds for the Good Earth Program.
28
neWs
News and Needs of Our Missions
Linda Miller, Editor
morgan scott Project (tennessee)—Morgan and Scott Counties
are of the poorest in the nation. Jobs are extremely hard to find,
but most people have access to plots of land. The Good Earth
Program, which was started to provide vegetable seeds, fertilizer,
seed potatoes, onion sets, cabbage plants, and tomato plants, has
grown: In 2010, 405 families were helped.
MSP director Ella Smith will be the guest of First Congregational
Church of Kingston, N.H., for its mission weekend in March.
Workers unload a bulldozer to level a field at Mission School of Hope.
mission school of Hope (cameroon) is expanding. MSOH
now has two structures that will have four apartments each, for
their teachers.
During the Christmas break, the buildings were painted, a new
roof installed, and new concrete floors poured. A bulldozer was
used to level the ground for the students.
Christian mission in the Far east (philippines) is moving its
office to Davao, Mindanao. Most of the mission’s churches and other
projects—schools, Bible schools and orphanage—are located in
different parts of Mindanao. Most of Rev. Jaime Julian’s missionary
journey is in Mindanao. He was asked by Edenton Mission College
(also in Mindanao) to visit them at least once in a month.
Panamerican institute
(Mexico) was able to give
out 60 food baskets for
Christmas to families of
their students. They have
been doing this for 39
years. Twenty-three volunteers
helped to pack the
baskets.
Most families were able
pick up their food baskets
before the rains came.
Later that night most
streets turned into rivers
Families pick up food baskets from the
Panamerican Institute in a rainstorm.
and were closed for two days. Fortunately, our families had
food for up to a week.
Congregational Church of myanmar (Myanmar) held the first
graduation from its Congregational Bible College. The Rev. John
The Rev. John Carson, center, poses with the first graduates of Myanmar's
Congregational Bible College and their teachers.
Carson went to Myanmar to share in the celebration and gave the
keynote address.
gaP/Canaan ministries (Haiti)—From one of Steve Mossburg’s
weekly updates received at the NACCC office:
“This rings a bell in my mind of what it often must look like
to so many people of the task we face in taking the land of Haiti
for Christ. Disease, sickness, disasters, poverty, environmental
destruction, and the bondage that voodoo holds over the people.

Yet this is the everyday reality we face as missionaries here in
Haiti and one can often feel that we are only grasshoppers in a
place where the obstacles loom very large. Last year was certainly
a year of feeling as if the land would swallow us up, all of us
working here in Haiti faced huge obstacles that only our God
could help us overcome. We were strengthened and refined to be
better instruments for God to use in conquering the forces that
hold this land captive.”
Check out their Web site at www.gap-haiti.com.
Christ to the Villages (nigeria)—
The Rev. Matthew Oladele has
returned in a leadership role since
September 2010. He says, “It
has been a wonderful and busy
months for us here. We have been
going up and down trying to put
things in place, and visiting village
churches. We marked the one year
Rev. Matthew Oladele of the passing of Solomon last year
October. The magnitude of the
work here is big as the ministry has grown, and continues to
grow with new things God is putting in our mind.”
national association of Congregational Churches (philippines)
sends this message of hope: “The vision is carried on by our people.
NACC recently received a heart-warming gift. One of our most
financially limited churches, located in a squatters relocation area,
sacrificially gave an offering to our office this January. It gave
365 pesos to encourage the NACC leadership. According to the
pastor, this is his members’ appreciation of our ministry and a
representation of their claim that for 365 days, God will provide.”
Thank you for your support!
For more information on any of these missions, or to make
a donation, contact Linda Miller at the NACCC office,
800-262-1620, ext. 13.
The missionary society, naCCC
Po Box 288
oak Creek Wi 53154
For a complete listing of NACCC Mission Projects, please go
to our Web site, www.naccc.org, and click on “ Missions.”
needs
Linda Miller, Editor
morgan scott Project is looking for funds to buy
seeds, plants, and fertilizer for the Good Earth Program
(see above). For more information, contact Linda at the
NACCC Office.
mission mazahua (Mexico)—The Rev. Jack Brown,
Olivet Congregational Church, is leading his annual
mission trip to Mission Mazahua June 22-29, 2011. He is
looking for people to join him—it’s a great opportunity.
You can find more about this trip at www.naccc.org.
Fishers of men (Mexico) needs your used prescription
glasses and sun glasses. You can send them to PO Box
352016, Toledo OH 43635.
asociación Civil Cristiana Congregational (Argentina)
asks for prayers for these areas of concern: The
child sponsorship program, the community garden area,
health service area, and the worship area.
indian trails mission (Arizona)—Sharon Gossett
had surgery to implant a pacemaker and it was successful.
Pray for her recovery.
First Congregational Church
of Burlington, Iowa
is seeking a full-time senior minister. Part of
this river city’s steepled downtown landscape, First
Congregational was gathered in 1838 and boasts
a rich history of advocating for civil rights, public
education, and free libraries.
Our stable congregation enjoys a strong musical
tradition, and we frequently host community events,
including concerts and lectures. Our church family
is interested in stability and growth.
Please find our Church Information Form
on the NACCC Web site at www.naccc.org/
Ministries/MinisterialOpportunities.aspx.
We may
have just
what you’re
looking for!
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NetMending by Rob Brink
Every minister ought to blog. That’s a strong claim, since
some ministers don’t even know what “blog” means, but
I believe it’s true.
Blog is short for Web log, an online journal. The benefits of
journaling are well documented, but blogging also provides
uniquely 21st-century benefits.
Suppose you meet someone online. How do they know
you’re legitimate?
Suppose someone is church shopping. How can they tell
you’re not “one of the crazies”?
Suppose your search committee interviews someone. How
do you know they’re not just saying what you want to hear?
A blog provides instant credibility. Take two minutes, go
to RevSmilez.com, and peruse. Just skim and click around.
In two minutes or less, you’ll learn and a bit about my family,
interests, and theology. With slightly more effort, you can
verify that I’ve been blogging for over two years and get a
very good idea of my personal “voice.”
Why does this matter? Because faking something like that
is way more work than your average miscreant cares to invest.
Calendar
March 9
ash Wednesday
March 19
Web savvy ministry Workshop—
Center for Congregational leadership, Olivet, Mich.
Contact Marie Steele at 800-262-1620, ext. 22, or msteele@naccc.org
April 2
naCCC Healthy Church Workshop—Novi, Mich.
Contact Linda Miller at 800-262-1620, ext. 13, or lmiller@naccc.org
April 24
easter
May 2-5
naCCC ministers’ Convocation—Mundelein, Ill.
www.centerforcongregationalleadership.org
or contact Marie Steele at 800-262-1620, ext. 22, or msteele@naccc.org
June 18-21
naCCC annual meeting and Conference—Scottsdale, Ariz.
www.nacccc.org or contact Carrie Dahm
at 800-262-1620, ext. 15, or cdahm@naccc.org
Also, search engines LOVE blog content, making you much
more findable online.
How to get started? Go to wordpress.com and sign up for
a free account. (There are others, but I like Wordpress.) Post
sermons, pictures, ponderings, videos, music, or commentary.
Whatever it is that you’re good at, post it. Think of it as a
portfolio, or a very gentle way to start a conversation.
Looking for a next step? Invest in a domain name. They
look professional, they’re cheap, and they open up cool
options down the road. Want to know more? E-mail Rob@
RevSmilez.com.
th E rE v. ro b E r t J. br i n k is senior
minister at First Congregational Church,
Saugatuck, Mich., and served previously as
associate minister at First Congrega tional
Church, Wauwatosa, Wis., and Second
Congregational Church, Beloit, Wis. If you
have a technology-related question for
“Net Mending,” e-mail Rob@RevSmilez.
com or write Rev. Rob Brink, P.O. Box
633, Saugatuck, MI 49453.
June 22-29
short term mission trip to misión mazahua—
San Felipe del Progreso, Mexico
www.naccc.org or contact the Rev. Jack Brown
at 269-749-2631 or jbrown@olivetcollege.edu
June 25-29
naPF/HoPe annual youth Conference—Phoenix/Tempe, Ariz.
www.naccc.org or contact Lynn Merkel
at 847-989-2549 or lynnievon@comcast.net
July 24-30
Congregational History and Polity intensive seminar—
Boston, Mass.
www.centerforcongregationalleadership.org or
contact Marie Steele at 800-262-1620, ext. 22, or msteele@naccc.org
saVe tHe date!
June 23-26, 2012
naCCC annual meeting and Conference
—Bloomington, Minn.

Benediction
They took palm branches and
went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the
King of Israel!”
— John 12:13,
Ne w IN t e r N at Io N a l Ve r s Io N
Children of the Founders Congregational Church, Harwinton, Conn.,
cmu001770 TrustAd_Hrz.qxd:The Congregationalist 8/4/10 12:11 PM Page 1
prepare to celebrate Palm Sunday 2009.
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