Maltby and Me

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.