Remembering How It's Supposed to Be

The agreement usually exists in a federated (two or more denominations represented in a single congregation) church that there will be an alternation of pastors from one denomination with the other(s). For the UCC church in Uehling this should have meant that every other appointment to the Tri-Church Parish would have been an ordained UCC pastor. This would have required relatively tedious administrative oversight of the arrangement by both denominations, as well as the local churches involved, so it wasn’t really surprising to discover that the Uehling church had deferred to so many successive United Methodist appointments that it had, for all intents and purposes, lost touch with its own denominational roots. This was unfortunate for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the lack of exposure for all three churches to the relatively progressive theological and ecclesiastical position of the UCC. The Uehling church had no binding representation in the Nebraska Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church, and it had been ages since the congregation had been fully represented in its own conference. I have long appreciated Kris Kristofferson’s words—“freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose”—which were perfect for my role in presenting this concern to the Uehling board.