Maltby and Me
As of December 16,
2014
As I write this post I am the
pastoral search committee’s candidate for the call as half time pastor of The
First Congregational Church of Maltby. That news has surprised (or shocked?)
some of my friends and ministerial colleagues. Several have asked me questions
about my possible call to Maltby. They have ranged from “Where’s Maltby” to “Don’t
you think they’re too conservative for you?” So I decided to write down what I
know about the Maltby church and how my relationship with it has developed. I
hope this little essay will answer your questions, at least to the extent that
I am able to answer them at this time.
Maltby is an unincorporated area
on the southern boundary of Snohomish County, Washington. It is located a few
miles north (more or less) of the city of Woodinville just off Washington state
Highway 522 on Washington state Highway 524. It is famous not for its church
but for the Maltby Café, located just a short distance from the church. The
Maltby Café is widely known for having the best breakfasts around and gigantic
cinnamon rolls. Maltby has been occupied by non-native people for well over one
hundred years. Today it is mostly suburban with farm or ranch property mixed
in.
The First Congregational Church
of Maltby is a member not of my United Church of Christ but of the National
Association of Congregational Christian Churches. In 1957 the national bodies
of a denomination called The Congregational Christian Churches merged with another
denomination called The Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the UCC. No entity
had the authority to merge the Congregational churches into the UCC. Each
Congregational church had to make its own decision whether or not to join the
new denomination. Eventually most did, but some did not. Maltby didn’t. The
Congregational churches that didn’t join the UCC formed the National
Association of Congregational Christian Churches. Maltby is one of the 400 or
so churches that make up the National Association.
The First Congregational Church
of Maltby was founded in 1903 by settlers in what was then a logging community.
Like most mainline Protestant churches it has experienced periods of health and
strength and periods of decline and struggle. The church has given me a rather
long history of the church, but I haven’t read it all yet. I know that Rev.
Norm Erlandsen served as pastor from 1990 until after 2005. He was a graduate
of Pacific School of Religion, the very liberal UCC seminary in Berkeley,
California. More recently the church’s pastoral history has been unsettled and
troubled at best. Various people have filled the pulpit. One of them was, by
all accounts, very conservative. Recently (I don’t know exactly when) he left
and took some of the conservative members of the congregation with him. They
had an interim pastor named Diane until sometime in the spring or summer of
2014. She described herself as progressive, and the people tell me they loved
her. She resigned for health reasons, and the church has been without a pastor
since that time.
I have known that there was a
non-UCC church on the main road in Maltby for a long time. I recall that when
my parents, brother, and sister-in-law were visiting me when I lived in
Lynnwood and was serving the Monroe church I gave them directions to the Monroe
church by driving down Hwy 524 from Lynnwood to Hwy 522. In my note to them I
pointed out the Maltby church, but at that time I knew only that it was not
part of the UCC. Over my time as a pastor of Monroe Congregational UCC I met a
few of the members of that congregation. One of them, Joan Pinney, is a fine
artist who is widely known in these parts. She painted a picture of the Monroe
church’s sanctuary building that hands in that church’s fellowship hall. I met
her once in Monroe years ago, but I certainly didn’t know her. Two or three of
the men of the Maltby church have come to the Monroe church’s men’s group
breakfasts a time or two after Ed Meyer, a former member of the Maltby church,
moved his membership to the Monroe church.
I learned a good deal more about
the First Congregational Church of Maltby from Ed. He and his wife Mariko live
in Maltby and had been members of the Maltby church for some time. Then the
time of troubles started after Norm Erlandsen left. Finally the church got too
conservative and too conflicted for Ed and Mariko, and they came to Monroe for
a better church experience. From Ed I got the notion that the Maltby church had
become very conservative and very troubled.
My relationship with the Maltby
church started to change in the summer of this year, 2014. Ed was attending one
of my book groups for the Monroe church. One day last summer it was really hot,
so Jane and I invited the group to meet at the house we had recently purchased
in Sultan, where we had installed a ductless heat pump. Air conditioning is
indeed a marvelous thing. Kris and Walter, a couple who are members of the
Maltby church, came to that meeting with Ed. A short time later Kris called me
and asked if I would ever be available for pulpit supply in Maltby. I said
Kris, I thought I was the last person in the world the Maltby church would want
to hear from. She said that about one quarter of the congregation is very
conservative but the rest of us aren’t. We’d love to hear from you. She said
that some of the people of the church had even talked about exploring
membership in the UCC. So I arranged with my co-pastor (and wife) Jane to
preach at the Maltby church on October 12, 2014.
Not long after the inquiry about
my doing pulpit supply someone else from the Maltby church (Walter I think, but
my memory is terrible these days) called and asked if I knew of any UCC pastor
types who might be interested in the call to Maltby. I said I didn’t but that I’d
see what I could find out. I called Mike Denton, our UCC Conference Minister.
He said that of course the Conference couldn’t help directly with Maltby’s
pastoral search since the church isn’t part of the UCC, but he told me to put
the inquiry out on the Conference’s email list. I did. At that point it had
never occurred to me to apply myself. Apparently they got one response but
weren’t interested in pursuing the matter with that person.
Not much later I had a thought.
I was looking for something new in my life. I was feeling like a fifth wheel in
Monroe, where my wife had been the fulltime pastor for the last year and I was
working only one-quarter time. The Monroe church’s finances weren’t in good
shape from their trying to pay both Jane and me, and I had thought about
resigning. I thought about the inquiry about UCC pastors and said: Why not me? So
before I preached at Maltby the first time I asked Gordon Hamlin, a member of
the church who had become my primary contact for pulpit supply purposes, to
meet with me. He turns out that he is both Moderator of the congregation and
chair of the pastoral search committee. He told me later he didn’t understand
at first why I had asked for that meeting. After we had talked for a while he
did. I asked him how he thought the church would feel about me applying for the
call. He said he didn’t know but that he would see what he could find out. I
gave him a brief resume I had prepared.
After I preached at Maltby on
October 12, Gordon asked me if I were available to lead worship on November 2
and November 9. They especially wanted an ordained person to preside at
Communion on that first Sunday in November. I talked to Jane and to the
Trustees of the Monroe church about it, and they said yes, do it. So I did. Gordon
then asked me if I could to all of the Sundays of Advent and Christmas Eve at
the church. I said I’d have to talk to people at Monroe about it and get back
to him. I called the Monroe church’s Pastor-Parish Relations Committee together
to discuss the matter. At this point I had not tendered my resignation from
Monroe and had not in fact decided to do tender it. Jane and the PPRC said yes,
so I signed on for Advent and Christmas Eve at the Maltby church. Gordon asked
me to complete the Minister Information File on the National Association’s web
site, and I did.
One day I met Gordon for lunch
in Monroe, and we talked a lot more. He told me that he would be my advocate
for the call. On November 25 I spent nearly two hours with the Maltby pastoral
search committee. They made me their candidate for the call. I haven’t pulled
any punches with them, or at least not many. They know that I am a progressive
Christian. Gordon at least knows that I have done same-gender weddings, but
then he told me that their interim Diane had too. Gordon is reading my book Liberating Christianity and says very
complimentary things about it. I have included my Christian universalism and my
belief in God’s totally unconditional grace for all people in my sermons. I
preached a sermon on peace in which I have them Jesus’ program of distributive justice
and nonviolence as the way to peace. I was apprehensive about how that sermon
would be received (mostly because so many people reject Jesus’ teaching of nonviolence),
but I have rarely gotten so many positive comments after a sermon as I got
after that one.
Meanwhile, back in Monroe, I
tendered my resignation effective at the end of the year at the Cabinet (church
council) meeting on Nov. 9, having left the Maltby church in time to get back
to Monroe for that meeting. That resignation really has nothing to do with
Maltby. I would have resigned even if the Maltby church and the possibility of
being their pastor had never entered my life. My resignation was prompted not
by Maltby but by Monroe’s financial status. The financial numbers for 2014 are
bad. The church’s financial reserves are being depleted. When I saw the numbers
through the end of October at the Trustees meeting early in November I knew
that I had to resign. When Jane came on staff as co-pastor we pledged to each
other that we would not just sit by and watch our compensation packages bleed
the church dry. That’s exactly what they’re doing. I suppose having Maltby on
the horizon made it easier for me to resign, but Maltby isn’t why I did it. My
resignation came as a shock to most of the people in Monroe, although I can’t
believe that it was a surprise to all of the Trustees, for they had seen me
reacting to the bad numbers for a long time. Leaving Monroe is hard. Really
hard. I love those people, and I think they love me. Still, no pastorate lasts
forever, and my pastorate in Monroe ends on December 31. I will be there on
Jan. 4, the first Sunday in January, for the formal termination of covenant and
good-bye service. I’m not looking forward to it. It will be a time of
celebration, but also a time of tears.
The Maltby pastoral search
committee identified me as their candidate to the church’s Administrative Board
on Dec. 10. They identified me as their candidate to the congregation at a
special congregational meeting after worship on Dec. 14. It seemed the news as
well received. The congregation won’t vote on the call for a while yet. Their
bylaws specify that a candidate’s credentials be posted in the church for 22
days after the candidate has been identified. That makes the earliest possible
date for a vote Jan.5, a Monday. Gordon has told the congregation that they
will probably vote on my call either on Jan. 18 or January 25. So it’s not a
done deal yet. I expect to be called, but that’s up to the congregation at this
point. They will do what they will do.
Being pastor of First
Congregational Church of Maltby will be a challenge, assuming for the moment
that I will become their pastor. The call will be half time, 20 hours a week. The
compensation package is modest, to put a nice word on it. The congregation is
tiny, having a membership of around two dozen. There apparently is some
significant division among them between very conservative people and more
progressive people. The tensions and disputes seem to have quieted down for
now, perhaps in large part because that one pastor left and took many of the
conservatives with him. Yet of course underground conflict can be more
destructive than overt conflict, so we’ll see what happens. I am intrigued at
the prospect of getting to know them better and helping them with whatever
issues they face. At my meeting with their search committee one of them asked
me what problems I see in the church. I said that it was too early for me to
know, but I did say that perhaps they have a lack of clarity over just who they
are as a church. The woman who asked the question said “You’re spot on there.”
Identity was an issue for the Monroe church when I started there in 2002, so I
have some experience helping churches figure that one out. I won’t push them to
join the UCC, but if they want to explore that possibility I will be happy to
work with on the issue and connect them with the appropriate people in the
local UCC Conference.
So we’ll see what happens. I
pray that God will help both the church and me with our discernment over
whether we are indeed called to do ministry together. Stay tuned.
