Annual Meeting Begins: Events of Day One

Members of the Fairfield West Association offered a warm welcome to the delegates and participants in the 136th Annual Meeting of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. Guides in orange baseball caps directed cars around the parking lot and attendees around the corridors of New Canaan's Congregational Church and Saxe Middle School, where they found a multitude of displays to view and old friends (and new) to greet. The piano artistry of David Jarvis filtered from the stage, dominated by hanging quilts and a UCC symbol--as the visitors gathered for the first plenary session.

Fairfield West Moderator the Rev. Jeffrey Craw reinforced the volunteers' warm welcome, and Conference Moderator Erskine McIntosh led the delegates through the opening business. The Rev. Kim Hyo-Sung, Moderator of the Kyung-Ki Presbytery, the Conference's partner church in South Korea, brought powerful words of thanks for the UCC's support of a peaceful resolution to the divisions on that peninsula, and challenged his hearers (and all Americans) to continue that vital work.

Conference Minister the Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree delivered her eighth address to the meeting with poise, grace, humor, insight, and passion. She explored the remarkable range and exceptional challenges of Christian hospitality, reflecting on hearing one another, welcoming one another, feeding one another, and sustaining one another.

[Click here to read the address in full]

Among the challenges she offered in her address: finding creative and persistent ways of addressing racism in our day, creating a community committed to nonviolence (and spreading the news of this community), and looking closely at the ways in which we share and receive each others' ministries. "The deep hospitality I see as a sign of hope in a fractured age," she said, "is a dynamic, enriched covenant that always calls us beyond ourselves and our comfort. That is because this covenant, this hospitality, is born of the triune God."

"The world needs us. The people of Connecticut need us. We need one another."

The evening ended with a striking service of worship, in which a hidden voice asked the worshipers "Who are you? Where were you? Are ye able?" and several voices responded. The Conference installed four staff members who declared that they were able to serve:

• Charlie Kuchenbrod: Associate Conference Minister for Administration
• Jim Morgan: Associate Conference Minister for Wider Church Ministries
• Anne and Tim Hughes: Co-Directors of Silver Lake Conference Center.

With the words of "Won't You Let Me Be Your Servant?" echoing in the ears of those who had sung it, the congregation retired for the evening. Questions and decisions lie ahead, to be taken in an atmosphere of welcome and community that had been most tenderly fostered this evening.

[Annual Meeting 2003]