First Reformed United Church of Christ

The Interim Minister Search Committee and the Consistory have invited me to use this space in the April edition of First News to offer a personal word of greetings to you, the members and friends of First Reformed UCC, as your newly selected Intentional Interim Minister.  You should have received a mailing, dated March 27, 2008, which introduces me and my family briefly; if, for some reason, you did not receive such a mailing, I am sure that Paula Lopp will provide one for you from the church office, upon request.  Some of you may have been present on Sunday, March 2, 2008, when I was privileged to serve as our worship leader in a “supply” capacity, and some of you may know me from wider WNCA and Southern Conference contexts.

However this may be, I am excited about the privilege of getting to know all of you a great deal better within an Intentional Interim Ministry setting, one which is presently scheduled to begin on Tuesday, April 15 (whether our tax returns are ready or not!), my first Sunday then being on April 20.  While these plans are still tentative as of this writing, my understanding is that we will enjoy a catered (free will donation) luncheon immediately after our April 20 service, providing a casual opportunity for us to enjoy each other and to get better acquainted.  I do hope that you will make every effort to attend both this service of worship and this time of informal fellowship and breaking of bread together.

I am hoping that we will have a period of time where you may ask questions either about me and my family or about Intentional Interim Ministry, which, while it has been around for perhaps thirty years or so, may still require some explanation for some of us.  For now, suffice it to say that I will serve as your full-time, 24/7, pastor, engaging the wide range of ministries that the Rev. Mike Hooper did so effectively.  In addition to those services, however, I will lead the formation and the functioning of a “Transition Team,” a group of perhaps 18 members that will be chosen by you, the congregation, representing the various key voices and constituencies within the congregation.  Our Team will engage in a series of “developmental” studies, the results of which will then be shared with you, the larger congregation, in a series of meetings we call “assemblies.”  These assemblies both inform you of the Team’s findings and invite you to share in our work of discovery, providing additional feedback to the questions that the Team itself (not me!) has identified as important.  In this manner, the entire congregation participates in this process of discovery, discernment and growth, not just the Team.

At the very center of this process of congregational self-study and renewal--involving as it does aspects of healing and grieving, growth and discernment, forgiveness and reconciliation--is spiritually grounded gratitude. Embedded somewhere within Karl Barth’s massive Church Dogmatics is this statement:

“Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth.  Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo.  Gratitude follows grace like thunder lightning…(We) are speaking of the grace of God who is God for us, and of the gratitude of (humankind) as (our) response to this grace.  Here, at any rate, the two belong together, so that only gratitude can  correspond to grace, and this correspondence cannot fail.  Its failure, ingratitude, is sin, transgression. 

Radically and basically all sin is simply ingratitude—(human) refusal of the one but necessary thing which is proper to and is required of (those) with whom God has graciously entered into covenant.  As far as (we are) concerned there can be no question of anything but gratitude; but gratitude is the complement which we must necessarily fulfill.”

I included the word “gratitude” in my title to this message to you.  That inclusion was neither casual nor formulaic, but central and vital to our ministry together.  I think that Barth and Henri Nouwen and others are exactly right when they place gratitude at the very center of any authentically faithful response to God’s blessings among us.  Any inquiry or study or ministry we engage will be honest and truthful and productive if we engage it with gratitude, with appreciative, humble faithfulness at every step of the way…this is the truly “safe” place from which to conduct any inquiry, any ministry.  As it is with gratitude that I approach my ministry with you, I invite you to share that Biblically grounded vision with me, so that we may together partake in deepest humility of those fruits of which the Apostle Paul speaks in Philippians 4:8:

“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

By doing so, this practice will enable us to think and speak about everything else without defensiveness and in safety, in trust and openness to God in Jesus Christ whose spirit seeks to guide us toward the deepest Christian wisdom.  By focusing upon the countless blessings which God has bestowed upon us in Jesus Christ and by expressing our praise and thanksgiving and gratitude for these blessings, our sins and mistakes and missteps become the relatively small things they always were—large when seen through the magnifying glass of our own guilt and the harsh judgment of others but small in comparison to God’s merciful grace and compassion to heal us of our wounds, self-imposed or otherwise, and to set us on paths of new beginnings in the fullness of Christ’s resurrection for us and through us.   Our sins become small when seen through the magnifying glass of Christ’s victorious love for us and through us.

Paul continues:  “Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”  (Philippians 4:9)  Too often we tend to think of “peace” primarily as an inner, emotional tranquility.  While that is certainly a wonderful gift for which we should be grateful, I am speaking here more of a “holistic formation of the congregation that counters affliction, discord, conflict, lostness” (Memories, Hopes and Conversations, Mark Lau Branson, p. 64) with a surpassing and surprising knowledge of the infinite resources of God’s grace in Jesus Christ to overcome every impediment to our happiness and effectiveness as His Body, the Church.

I am profoundly grateful to God to be among you shortly. 

Blessings and Shalom. 

Rev. Walter Patten