Annual Meeting 2001 -- Day One

With the vibrant colors of a New England autumn gilding the roadsides, delegates from the Connecticut Conference's churches gathered in Danielson's Killingly High School for the 134th Annual Meeting. Local hosts from the churches of the Windham Association and the school staff had made great efforts to welcome the influx, and provided a space of both comfort and beauty for the meeting. What a great way for the gathering to begin!

Commissioning the Associate Conference Ministers

The first day's activities featured the Conference Minister's address, a welcome from the host Association, the Authorized Minister's event, honoring those celebrating 25 and 50 years of ordained ministry, the commissioning the five Associate Conference Ministers, and the first opportunities to examine the gymnasium full of displays.

The Rev. Dr. Mary Luti, Senior Pastor of First Congregational Church in Cambridge, MA, opened the event at a special luncheon for ordained, licensed, and authorized ministers, speaking about the challenges for ministering to people who have been raised Catholic and later entered UCC congregations. Somewhat later, the Conference honored seven individuals who have served the church for fifty years:

• A. Russell Ayre
• Sarah Alexander Edwards
• Loring Ensign
• George Evans
• Truman Ireland
• Forrest Johnson
• Kenneth Steere

and ten individuals celebrating twenty-five years:

• James Chapman
• John Collins
• Gordon Ellis
• David Good
• David Hathaway
• Marcia Klepper-Smith
• Joseph Neville
• Larry Smith
• William Warner-Prouty
• Anthony Wight.

After opening worship and business, Conference Minister the Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree delivered her address, a powerful and thoughtful call for the church to do its mission and ministry in the midst of terrorism and war. "We urgently need to ask the one central question that looms before us: how will we be Christ's people in this time?"

Davida Foy Crabtree, Conference Minister

In response, she called for serious theological task on what it means to be Christ's church at any time, and announced the imminent creation of a working group, making educational and spiritual development opportunities available to local church pastors, creating retreats for laity, and providing new resources on the Internet.

In a personal testimony, Dr. Crabtree said, "I believe that we who are Christians are always called to work for peace... In every cell of my body and every fiber of my being, I believe that meeting terrorist violence with more violence simply escalates the hatred and feeds the poison." She called for a vigorous and tireless search to bring the terrorists to justice in an international court, even if it took the forty years.

Dr. Crabtree also urged the delegates to value and defend the freedoms which are their heritage as United States citizens, quoting Philippine Senator Jovito Salonga's words, "We are as free as the freedom we assert." "The terrorists must not be allowed to kill our fundamental democratic freedoms, nor silence the voices of protest by the citizenry as our government insists on the appearance of a united land."

She closed with the story of a man who had survived the devastation of the World Trade Center who took part in a ropes course challenge at Silver Lake Conference Center three weeks later. When asked what he liked best, he said it was the privilege of being in a place where he could face his fear and know he would return to his family afterward. In such things we see the vital importance of the Church in human lives. "And God continues to work with us and through us to create a new heaven and a new earth."