An Authentic Life 1.1 for pdf - Universalist Radha-Krishnaism

fire me. They said if I left voluntarily, they would say
that I resigned.
I said, “No, I want it on record that I was fired
so that whoever follows me knows what kind of people
you are.”
Unfortunately, they hired Dan Schott to be my
replacement. He enrolled in seminary after I went to
Clinton and was considered the most conservative
UCC student in his class. He and his family were instrumental
in ousting me.
When the Area Conference Minister, Beverly
Travis, and the chair of the Church and Ministry
Committee learned what happened, they agreed that
the council had no right to fire me. It had to be done
by a vote of the congregation. A special congregational
meeting was called to validate the council’s action.
Beverly told them that if they had any integrity
they should not support the council. They did. I was
given ninety days notice.
Fortunately, Jack Seville, conference minister
for the Northern Plains Conference UCC, read my
ministerial profile, liked it, and circulated it to
churches in North Dakota, although I expressed no
interest in serving there. Two churches interested in
hiring me flew Geraldine and I there for interviews.
We didn’t click with the first congregation, but
things went well with the second in Valley City, a
town of 7,000 in the middle of the prairie, sixty miles
west of Fargo. Jeff Miller, a young grain elevator operator,
was chair of the search committee and church
treasurer. We hit it off well and remained friends for
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