Starting with Spirit by Epperly Bruce G.;

Author:Epperly, Bruce G.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1674108
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Living by a Vision

Biblical theologian and scholar Marcus Borg describes Jesus as a spirit person whose lived experience of God enabled him to reveal God’s presence to others. I believe that today’s pastors are also called to be spirit people whose sense of God’s presence through practices such as prayer, meditation, and prophetic hospitality invites congregants to deepen their own spiritual lives and commitment to God’s vision of shalom. Monica Dawkins-Smith fits the vocation of pastor as spirit person: she was called to ministry through a mystical experience,4 she anchors her life in an intimate relationship with Jesus, and she experiences her call as a new pastor as the ongoing quest to discover God’s vision for her life.

Monica recalls her first experience at the historic Salem United Church of Christ (Old Salem Church) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Jamaican in ancestry, she was called to fill in one Sunday at what was then an aging German Reformed congregation. As she preached, she had a vision that literally took her breath away. She saw what the church was called to be in its changing neighborhood. “I saw the church as God intended it to be, filled with people of all ethnicities and ages, African Americans, Latinos and Latinas, refugees, men, women, and children, [people] of all sexual orientations.” A year later, she was called to pastor Old Salem Church, and under her direction, this historic church is embracing God’s new creation.

Monica did not initially jump at the call to serve Salem UCC. Instead of choosing to be installed as its permanent pastor, she chose to be supply pastor for a year in order for the congregation and her to discern whether her leadership was part of God’s call for them. Monica had a dream for the congregation, and she wanted her dream of a multicultural congregation to be in sync with the congregation’s aspirations. Monica saw a new congregation emerging from Old Salem, not to supplant the historic congregation but to reach out to a diverse community that surrounded the congregation. Monica remembers that the vote to call her as pastor and teacher was rather close because people feared she would neglect the existing congregation as she worked to form a new one. These fears have been unfounded: as the new church begins its afternoon service, the existing congregation’s morning service is growing in vitality and participation.

When she, an innovative entrepreneur and an African American woman, accepted the call to a stable, primarily white congregation, Monica knew that she was taking a risk. But adventurous living has been at heart of her vocational journey, and she testifies, “I followed the call, not knowing where it would lead.”

Monica, like Paul and Elaine, sees spiritual leadership as a matter of faithful innovation rather than organizational maintenance. While leading a revitalization process in an aging and numerically declining congregation, she was also initiating a new congregational start in the same building, aimed at downtown Harrisburg’s diverse cultural, ethnic, and lifestyle communities. In the process, the existing

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