The Iowa Conference of the United Church of Christ
5609 Douglas Ave.
Des Moines, Iowa 50310
phone: 515-277-6369
fax: 515/864-0012
The Iowa Conference of the United Church of Christ |
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| Annual Meeting Minutes | Conference Minister's Address | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nominee Biographies | 2009 Nominating Committee Report | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2010 pastoral compensation guidelines | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2009 statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
47th ANNUAL MEETING OF THE IOWA CONFERENCE SEEING VISIONS… DREAMING DREAMS… June 12, 2009 Moderator Guffey-Lewis introduced the other persons at the dais. They included Charles Aurand, parliamentarian; Mary Stonebraker, Secretary; and Tim Darmour-Paul, Assistant Moderator. After verifying the delegate count, Moderator Guffey-Lewis announced that there was a quorum present for the conduct of business. Minutes of 2008 Annual Meeting Report of Annual Meeting Task Force Introduction of Guests 2009 AM-2. M/S to grant the introduced visitors voice without vote for the Annual Meeting. Approved unanimously. Report of Nominating Committee Moderator: Tim Darmour-Paul, Davenport, Faith UCC (Clergy) 2009 AM-3. M/S to approve the Report of the Nominating Committee as presented. Approved unanimously.
Other Reports and Presentations
Recess June 13, 2009 CUE Report Annual Report to the Iowa Conference/Recognition of Covenant-Keeper Congregations Election 2009 AM-4. M/S to accept the nomination of Rev. Dilley as an addition to the Nominating Committee report, to close nominations and to declare the nominees elected. Approved unanimously.
2010 Budget National OCWM Contribution Adjustment 2010 Compensation Guidelines Moderator Guffey-Lewis declared the meeting in recess at 9:45 a.m. for the installation of newly elected persons. Moderator Guffey-Lewis reconvened the meeting at 9:55. Resolution of Thanks WHEREAS we have come together as the Iowa Conference of the United Church of Christ to participate in this body’s 47th Annual Meeting; and WHEREAS the Spirit of God is inspiring and challenging us to see visions and dream dreams of new ways to be faithful members and fruitful congregations in our various settings of ministry; and WHEREAS many people have generously share and are still generously offering their energies to bring us together for these purposes; and WHEREAS heartfelt gratitude is our most appropriate response to such a sharing of gifts; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that we lift grateful hearts to the Annual Meeting Task Force, which devoted many hours over the course of many months to envision all the necessary details for giving shape to this meeting. We especially thank the Chair, Arlene Drennan, who pushed the Task Force of Sharon Guffey-Lewis, Tim Darmour-Paul, Chuck Aurand, Michael Bausch, Gary Chapman, Bev Field, Joyce Hertz, Mary Huffman, John Mathias, and Peter Wenzel with the perfect blend of understanding and fierceness to see their dreams come together wondrously. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we offer special thanks to the worship subcommittee – to Chuck Aurand and Jean Norton and Tommi Boeder – for dreaming up our awesome and awe-inspiring expressions of worship; and thanks to the Friends in Faith Band and to Mona Terry and to Jean Norton for the energetic and engaging music by which our whole bodies have been moved to participate in praise; and thanks to Donnie Drennan and David Vander Kamp for managing the technology behind the sights and sounds of the whole experience. AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we sincerely thank our specially invited guests. Thank you to Rev. Linda Jaramillo who brings her dreams of the church as a people who cause a commotion on behalf of the members of society who have been pushed to the fringes; and thank you to Marilynne Robinson who brings her endearing visions of the historic struggles to be faithful families amidst the Iowa culture; and thanks to the leaders of our “Bytes” – to Gayle Strickler Jr., to Pastor Steve Jewett and Sheryl Banks, to John Mathias, and to Joyce Hertz whose “nibbles” of enthusiasm are giving us ideas for ministries to take home; and thanks to our workshop leaders – to Linda Jaramillo and Marilynne Robinson and Don Hiscox and Paul Lasley and Donnie Drennan and Rich McCarty – for sharing their expertise with us later today, that we may carry new dreams with us from this place. AND BE IT RESOLVED that we thank all our Conference Staff. We particularly acknowledge Lee Hood who brings together a multitude of dreams and visions from a variety of sources and binds them into packets and papers and booklets to keep us all on track; thanks also to Beverly Morgan, Julia Rendon, and Randy Adams for their more-than-capable background support, all of this through the seemingly endless phase of packing up the Conference office all around them; and thanks to our ministerial staff – to the Rev. Dr. Rich Pleva, to Tony Stoik, to Rev. Jonna Jensen, and to Rev. Nicole Havelka for all the time spent on the road, in our sanctuaries and boardrooms, and occasionally in their offices, for all their dreams of strengthening our local congregations and nurturing our ministries throughout Iowa. Thanks also to the Board of Directors, chaired so graciously and gracefully by Laura Lof, for keeping track of programs and budgets and plans for the workings of the whole Conference. AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we offer our gratitude to Our Sacred Space, Iowa Religious Media Services, Mayflower Homes, Souls Desires Bookstore, seminary representatives, and other Marketplace presenters for their diverse visions of ways our congregations can strengthen their ministries. Thanks, too, to all the delegates and visitors who have come together to dream for these two days; and thanks to the churches and families that have been left behind as we have engaged in pursuing these new visions. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we thank the Eastern Iowa Association and its Advisory Council for dreaming of hosting us, for inviting us to Cedar Rapids, and for finding these facilities for our gathering. Thanks to the capable staff of the Kirkwood Continuing Education Center – Stephanie Bredman, Heather Mell, Kathy Coleman, and Mary Huffman – for patiently working with all our visions to provide for this lively weekend. And last but not least, thanks to the Rev. Sharon Guffey-Lewis for her calm presence and capable handling of our business these days. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we not let our dreaming end with these two days, but that we continue to pursue, in all our settings, the vision of that day when God’s justice and peace rule every heart and all the earth. After the approval of the Resolution of Thanks, Moderator Guffey-Lewis passed the gavel to Moderator-Elect Darmour-Paul, who declared the 47th Annual Meeting of the Iowa Conference adjourned at 10:00 a.m.
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Iowa Conference United Church of Christ
In times of great change, it’s easy to lose focus. The months since our meeting last June in Grinnell have held great changes for me and the rest of the conference staff. Consider: we’ve welcomed two new members to our program staff. We sold our long owned office building on 42nd St. We searched long and hard for a place to move the office and consummated the purchase of that site. Each one of these transitions represented much hard work by many different people. Staffing and fully participating in two simultaneous searches, while marketing and then negotiating the sale terms of one building, and then searching for a place to move once we vacated that building and subsequently dealing with the remodeling of that new site and making physical arrangements for a move (furniture, technology, phones, signs, and more) have all combined to make this a very taxing year. Especially taxing for me since I was intimately involved in all of these transitions and the “regular” work of being conference minister didn’t go away during the execution of these additional tasks! In a more general sense we’ve all experienced great change in the past year. Perhaps there were two or three of you who presciently anticipated the economic freefall into which the world economy spiraled last fall, but if you did, you didn’t say so very loudly. I don’t blame you – giddiness is not an emotion which appreciates disruption, and those few who worried that our economy was ballooning in an unsustainable way would not have been much appreciated by those enjoying the (illusory) fruits of the seemingly endless growth cycle we were in. Then a couple months ago, the state Supreme Court struck down laws restricting marriage in our state to opposite sex couples. This was not an unanticipated turn of events, but it did interject additional work into the lives of many of us. It’s been a hectic year! There is a very old cliché which suggests that when you are up to your neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget that your objective is to drain the swamp. Similarly, when a conference staff finds itself engrossed in searching for and then orienting new staff, and when it finds itself heavily occupied with logistical questions about offices and technology, and when all of this is surrounded by profound economic uncertainty and anxiety and then when the ante gets raised again by the insertion of an issue about which emotions run high – particularly when the emotionally charged issue is undeniably germane to our churches – it would be understandable if the overall objective of the entire enterprise got waylaid. Perhaps to some extent, our overall objective has been waylaid. But even though my attention and the attention of my staff has been at times preoccupied by all these – and other – concerns, I am pleased to report that we are nonetheless clear that our calling is about service and transformation. We are not fundamentally about office buildings and staff development. We are not fundamentally about handwringing over economic crisis. We are not fundamentally about advocacy for or against the important social and cultural issues that regularly present themselves to church and society. These are all important, and in their own place demand response, but the staff of the Iowa Conference is called to support and facilitate the work of transformation. I’ve begun to condense our mission into this little phrase – “Transforming Churches – Transforming Lives.” Your conference staff is made up of real human beings. Naturally we are concerned about – motivated by – excited about – exasperated by – all the same kind of stuff that concerns, motivates, excites, exasperates (and more!) you! But we have a calling that is focused on the welfare of the 179 congregations of the Iowa Conference. I believe (and my staff believes) that God intends that our local churches be communities of transformation. We believe there are likely countless ministries to which our churches are called and that no two of our churches will be called to precisely the same work, but we believe that EVERY ONE of our churches is called to embrace the gospel call to transformation and growth. And how will the conference staff interface with God’s call on each and every one of our local churches? We intend to be coaches, cheerleaders and providers of resources. We will offer structures of accountability and even a kick in the rear on occasion (always lovingly administered, of course!). We will teach, listen, challenge, question, and gently cajole. Too often judicatories have been reactive rather than proactive. Conference staff have frequently been seen as (and too willing to function as) fixers of problems rather than as facilitators of health. As a systems thinker, I believe that behaviors which are attended to are reinforced and those which are ignored are diminished. If that’s true, then attending to conflict and dysfunction and trouble is a sure fire strategy by which to multiply more of the same. I’m encouraging my staff to attend LESS to conflict, dysfunction and trouble, and to pay more attention to potential for creativity and systemic health. I’d like it known and assumed in the Iowa Conference that churches get the attention of the staff by trying new and exciting things – by taking constructive risks – rather than by fighting and acting out. If this is our common focus, then why spend all this time on building a staff and moving an office? Well, to mix my metaphors just a bit, these are all tools by which the work of transformation can be supported. We have a staff because churches and particularly their pastors can be challenged to be their best as they are in substantive relationship with those who can model for them and coach them into stances of transformational leadership. It oversimplifies things only a little bit to say that the staff of the Iowa Conference hopes for your church to be a community of transformation and we are offering to help make that happen by working with your pastor so that his or her leadership skills will be stretched and enhanced and transformed. There will always be distractions – those pesky alligators! – but by God’s grace the very distractions of the past year (the new staff, the office building, etc) will themselves be the means by which to do our main thing with great intensity and determination and skill. Having said all this, there still remain important structural – some might say “infrastructural” – issues to which we will attend in the coming year. High on that list will be more intentional focus on ways to expand the financial foundation of the conference’s work. Currently nearly all our support comes from congregational support of OCWM (Our Church’s Wider Mission). Two years ago we made a first direct appeal to individuals for support of our common mission, and this past fall many of you supported that appeal with contributions of just over $20,000. Thank you and God bless you! I believe this work is critically important for the welfare of our churches, but I’m also enough of a realist to understand that support of a wider church judicatory isn’t particularly “sexy” and that we need to cultivate relationships with persons who “get it” about the importance of the wider church, and have the means to help underwrite this work in increasingly significant measure. Why is that? Because undesignated support of OCWM from congregations is not a growth industry. If the conference is to support our congregations in the ways I’ve described earlier, we need to broaden our base of financial support. You can expect to hear more about this in the coming years. Those two staff searches (about which I groused a bit), have brought wonderfully talented persons to our staff. Jonna Jensen is well known in the east, and her delightful spirit only slightly camouflages her deep insight and street savvy instincts. Nicole Havelka is that most rare of clergy creatures – she’s smart, gregarious and tough. Her need to be liked is well under control and she is single-mindedly focused on leadership development. Most of you have at least a sense of what Jonna’s work is, but more needs to be said about Nicole’s portfolio. Nicole and I are working to clarify both what her job is and what it ISN’T: Nicole is NOT youth pastor to the youth of our 179 churches. That would be a preposterous presumption and a sure and certain prescription for failure. No one can really be youth pastor to youth spread across 56,276 square miles of farmlands, towns and cities. It just can’t be done. Instead, Nicole’s work is about leadership development. Nicole is working to devise structures and resources so that people already in your church are supported and resourced to work with your youth. Her work is about the development of leadership skills in those who work with young people – partly to the end that those adults do the same with your youth. It’s mediated work that she’s about. Just as the ACM’s and I are about the work of supporting clergy to be transforming leaders, so Nicole is about the work of equipping youth workers to be transforming leaders. Be sure to call on her for help in building your work with youth and young adults! A few other miscellaneous observations:
Thank you for your patience in reading/listening to this quite lengthy report. Thank you also for your partnership in this important work to which God has called all of us.
Rich Pleva
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Supporting Our Ministry
Page 2: The following table and notes indicate recommended base cash salary based on church membership size and the minister’s years of experience. It is important to note that the value of a provided parsonage or cash housing allowance is NOT included in the figures below. For the compensation package to meet these guidelines it must include BOTH the cash salary as calculated below AND the value of a provided parsonage or cash housing allowance. Church $28,480 $29,175 $29,870 $30,565 $31,260 $31,955 These amounts are for a pastor in his/her first year of ministry. The amounts above should be increased by $490 for each additional year of pastoral experience. A pastoral compensation package does not meet conference guidelines unless it includes the recommended adjustments for church size and years of ministry experience. Notes: The base recommendation (the amount to the far left of the line above) has been increased by approximately 0.4% over the recommended amounts for 2009. The incremental increase for each year of experience has also been increased by 2.1% (from $480 per year of experience in 2009 to $490 per year of experience in 2010). Including an additional year of experience, these recommendations suggest effective increases ranging from 2.15% for a pastor moving from no experience (the far left of the table) to one year of experience in that smallest size church to an increase of 1.95% for a pastor moving from 20 to 21 years of experience at the far right side of the scale. For purposes of comparison, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 5.8% from January 2008 to January 2009. The Iowa Conference is well aware that many of our churches struggle to meet these guidelines. The first approach in such a situation must be a careful inward look in which the congregation openly and prayerfully considers whether it is really teaching and challenging its members to be generous givers and faithful stewards of the financial resources God has given to each. In cases where the resources to compensate at the guideline minimums cannot be obtained, it is important to enter into constructive negotiation with the pastor about alternative ways to recognize and honor the pastor’s work. Some pastors might gladly accept additional time off, additional vacation time or other non-economic considerations in lieu of a compensation increase. Other ways to acknowledge a pastor’s faithful service might include a year-end bonus, or a contribution toward paying off his/her/seminary debt, or (for pastors who live in a parsonage) contributions toward a (usually tax-deferred) housing equity fund (see next section). For the complete version of the salary guidelines, visit our website, www.ucciaconf.org and click on the link “Local Church Resources” and the Compensation Guidelines link under “Pastors”. |
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Iowa Conference Nominating Committee Report
The Iowa Conference Board of Directors has determined that the Nominating Committee should provide a single slate to the annual meeting for election, with the opportunity for nomination from the floor. Should delegates to the annual meeting choose to nominate someone from the floor, the nominee must be aware of the action and have agreed to have their name placed in nomination, and biographical materials available for distribution to the delegation at the time of nomination.
Slate of Nominees for Election by the Iowa Conference Annual Meeting 2009 Moderator: Tim Darmour-Paul, Davenport, Faith UCC (clergy) Mayflower Home Board of Trustees: Class of 2012 (3-year term)
Continuing to Serve: General Synod Delegates: |
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Ministers New to Serving Churches within the Iowa Conference UCC
Ministerial Changes within Iowa Conference UCC
UCC Ministers Closing Iowa Conference Service
Ordinations
Church Anniversaries in 2010
Total Membership of Churches
Necrology Homer Frank Perry, age 97, passed away March 26, 2009 at Mayflower Community in Grinnell IA. Homer was born in rural Corning, Iowa in 1911. He graduated from Corning High School in 1929. He attended Simpson College and taught high school for one year. Following his teaching experience he studied at the Biblical Seminary in New York, New York and earned his S.T.B. in 1940. In 1941 he was ordained in Sloan, Iowa by the Congregation Christian Church. Homer served as a Chaplain A.U.S. from 1944-1946. Leaving the military, he did a semester of graduate work at Andover Theological Seminary in Newton Center, Massachusetts. He then went on to earn his M.A. from the University of Iowa in 1950. Several congregations were blessed to have Homer serve their churches. His career in the Iowa Conference included pastorates at Schaller, Mapleton, Castana, Wilton, Moscow, Madrid – First Christian (U.C.C), Newburg – First Congregational and Marion – First Congregational. In later years he moved to Mayflower Homes in Grinnell. He continued to be active in local church activities and Iowa Conference annual meetings as he was able. Homer was a writer too and expressed himself through his poetry. Homer is preceded in death by his wife, Bonnie. He is survived by his two daughters |
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