What Brings us Life? Indiana Kentucky Conference Vision
Adam Hayden summarizes the future vision of the Indiana Kentucky Conference shared during the Annual Gathering, June 3-5, 2021
What does the bestselling book, The Hidden Life of Trees, have to do with discipleship? Indiana Kentucky Conference Minister, Rev. Chad Abbott, encouraged attendees of the 58th Annual Gathering to consider this question. Saturday morning, June 5, 2021, Rev. Abbott facilitated a plenary session that included updates from Conference ministry teams and featured Rev. Abott’s vision for the future of the Conference. Friedens UCC is in the Southeast Association of the Indiana Kentucky Conference, and several of our Friedens folks are involved in both local church and Conference work.
Pastor Tom Blossom leads the Sri Lanka Partnership for the Conference. Jim Jensen serves on the Board of Directors, and recent seminary graduate and Friedens disciple, Dakota Roberts, meets with the IKC Committee on Ministry as he discerns his future in ministry. Adam Hayden, Friedens disciple and leader of the Just Peace Exploratory Team, serves as a co-chair for the Indiana Kentucky Conference Justice and Witness Ministries Anti-Racism Task Force, and Pastor John Gantt serves as a member on this task force. Our Senior Pastor Marc Hayden serves on the inaugural Clergy Community of Practice initiative. We are proud of our church’s strong representation at the Conference level, and Friedens plans to serve as host for the 2022 Conference Annual Gathering next year.
Rev. Abbott’s vision for the Conference is bold and transformative, and he brings our focus to the local church as the “basic unit in our lives.” Rev. Abbott expounded on this notion of basic to mean fundamental and essential. Essential to what? Essential to the work of the Gospels. The work of the church, and so the work of the Gospels, according to Rev. Abbott, turns on our relationships. The future vision of the Conference is a future that emphasizes relational transformation. This is where the analogy to trees comes in. The surprising message of The Hidden Life of Trees is that trees are interconnected and communicate by mechanisms that are not fully understood. Elder trees are known to bend to allow sunlight to pass to the sprouting trees beneath the canopy; trees are rooted and their connection to their roots is embodied; trees have wisdom; and like each of us, we are not only individuals, but we are also deeply connected to each other and to our roots.
Rev. Abbott affirms our wisdom, affirms our interconnectedness, he affirms that we each have gifts, and he calls on us to discern: What brings us life? Both at the Conference and in local churches, he calls us to pursue those activities that bring us life, in the life-giving spirit of the one we follow, Jesus.
At Friedens, we recognize how important our relationships are to our personal thriving and community formation. We are fortunate to count among our disciples both descendants of our original founding families and new members who encountered our Friedens family just this year. Our commitment to relationship draws us together in extravagant welcome.
The future vision of the Conference is, in Rev. Abbott’s words, “A long haul transformation.” Over the next two calendar years, the Conference vision will realize its future state, guided by Circles of Discernment. These Circles of Discernment will call members from across the Conference to participate in the future design of our ministries. The Circles include: The WISE model to promote clergy and local church mental health; anti-racism ministry to promote racial justice in our churches and in ourselves; search, call, and transitional ministry to align ministry discernment and ministerial standing with broad Conference goals; and a focus on congregational vitality to place focus on the essential unit, the local church.
The realization of this future vision for the Indiana Kentucky Conference coincides with an exciting event. Our Conference hosts the United Church of Christ 2023 General Synod. Though still two years away, Conference leaders, staff, and volunteers are already hard at work preparing for General Synod. In fact, a promotional video is in the final stages of editing that will invite Synod attendees from across the country. In service of the anti-racism task force, Adam recorded a segment for the video set in our Friedens sanctuary. We can be proud and excited that Friedens is featured along with several other IKC local churches in this video.
In the end, we are left with this provocative question from. Rev. Chad Abbott: What brings us life? Maybe you’ll consider incorporating this question into your usual spiritual practices to discern for yourself and your loved ones, what brings you life? And I invite our Friedens clergy, Council on Ministry members, and ministry team members to work together to name this for Friedens. We are in a time of uncertainty for the present and a time of hope for the future, and through it all, we have each other. We are entering a time of relational transformation, and we are interconnected, like trees with ancient roots, elders with wisdom, and young saplings who need plenty of sun. What brings us life, friends?
