Three Convictions I Carry

Delegates to the 35th General Synod extended the great honor of electing me as the ‘settled’ Associate General Minister of the United Church of Christ. As I said in my remarks immediately following the election, I am humbled by and grateful for the trust delegates placed in me and promise to continue earning that trust throughout my service in this role.

Early in the days of General Synod, I delivered my nominee speech. Many asked for a copy of that speech afterward. You can watch the recording or an excerpt of that speech is provided below.

We are living in times of immense anxiety and instability in this nation and around the world. Fear is both a completely legitimate experience and a weapon used to intimidate and isolate us. Peace is a far too distant reality for siblings in many places… Sudan, Haiti, Gaza, and Ukraine among them. People are being disappeared, plucked off our streets, given no due process, detained and deported. There is an increasing price for lawful dissent and protest, an actual risk to prioritizing or even naming values like diversity, equity, and inclusion. The most basic rights and hard-fought legal freedoms of our LGBTQIA+ siblings are being rolled back and trampled on. The Statue of Liberty still reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” but we have slammed shut our nation’s door to refugees and largely abandoned our humanitarian support around the world. Political violence among us in this “land of the free and home of the brave” is rising and deeply alarming, stoked by nationalist, racist rhetoric and ideologies that are dangerous and sometimes fatal. And now: the “big brutal bill” has passed, and with it the largest cuts to our country’s social safety net in memory. Some days it feels as if every core value we hold precious in the United Church of Christ, every scriptural command we take to heart, is under assault, and we feel the grief and utter sickness of it all viscerally in our bodies and spirits.

I am keenly aware of that in this moment; I know how very weary many of us are. And it is not just what’s happening all around us in this country and our world, but also what’s happening in our beloved church. Many of our local congregations and Conferences are experiencing their own very real struggles, our numbers in many places dwindling and our exhaustion growing. The question for the Church now is nevertheless as it has always been: how can we be faithful? What is God’s call upon us in this particular season? How then shall we witness?

The answers to these fundamental questions of discipleship are for all of us to discern together in the United Church of Christ. Tonight, I want to share with you very briefly just 3 things emerging from my own discernment, three convictions I’m carrying as I come before you in this General Synod.

Conviction #1: Authentic partnerships and genuine relationship are essential to our future and to our faith.

Our Global Ministries provides a case in point. For nearly 30 years, we have formally partnered with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to do our global work, a collaboration that remains unique in the ecumenical world. Global Ministries is itself a model of partnership and partnership is central to everything we do as we accompany 250 partners in nearly 90 countries. As we strive to continually untangle ourselves from old colonial models of mission, we commit to nurturing relationships steeped in an honoring of mutual wisdom and gifts. We recognize our faith journeys are intertwined, that each partner has an experience of faith that can deepen our own, that we need each other. These partnerships require steady attention and nurturing, a willingness to draw near to one another in times of trial and rejoicing & to speak truth to one another in love. In this moment when our own government talks about turning Gaza into the Middle East Riviera and makes plans for Ukraine without Ukraine’s involvement, when we’re abandoning so much of our positive engagement in the world in favor of a hardened America-first, imperialistic world view, building global relationships of mutual care and respect is a counter-cultural imperative.

 It’s an imperative the whole of the Church would do well to embrace, not only on a global scale but in every setting. Jesus’ own example taught us that relationships are the heart of it all, that meeting one another with love and mercy and a generosity of spirit is what’s required. Jesus routinely got close to others’ pain, made space for hard truths and anxious fears. Church, this is our calling still: to dive deeply into relationships, to trust and nurture the covenant we claim binds us in the United Church of Christ. We need to extend more grace than gripes, honor the diverse wisdom and experiences each part of the Church offers, practice some genuine humility, and recognize just how much we truly need one another. The authenticity of our relationships, and the extent to which we’re willing to truly be partners in Christ’s service (as one of our favorite hymns rings out), is a critical factor in our ability to fully and faithfully meet this moment.

Conviction #2: The prophetic and the pastoral are bound up together. Neither by itself is sufficient.

I learned as a local church pastor and as a Conference Minister, that once people trusted that I would be at their side when they were in pain, they’d also trust me to speak prophetically when moved to do so by others’ pain. I learned it while at Back Bay Mission, where our steady work to feed the hungry and house those experiencing homelessness and give help to those struggling to get by informed our advocacy and gave credibility to our community organizing. And it has been driven home to me all over again when visiting our global partners during this last year-and-a-half: the pastoral and the prophetic are both gifts we desperately need in this moment.

It has been one of the biggest surprises for me thus far in this work, that often the first and most important thing I can offer our global partners is pastoral presence, a willingness to be silent and hear their story. When Global Relations Minister Peter Makari and I visited our partners in Palestine & Israel last summer that became so very clear. It was as if our partners and others we encountered had been holding their breath until that moment when someone would come and sit with them, listen to them, and hold space for their wrenching grief. During several of those visits I asked our partners what they needed most from us. “Just this,” one person replied, “sitting and talking together.” “Be with us, hear us,” said another. “We don’t need your help. We need your solidarity.” “Advocacy,” one more added. “Use your platform to make change. You are here. You are our witnesses. You see us. Now be our ambassadors.” You can hear it in their testimony, can’t you? The pastoral and the prophetic are bound up in one seamless garment of witness and discipleship.

The UCC is a church of prophetic courage and conviction, a church of firsts that has shown itself willing to stand up and speak out again and again for the sake of a just peace and a loving world. But we are also a church of quiet conversations and loving pastoral care, a place where hope and pain and questions are shared, where the hungry are fed and the hurting are healed, a church that meets the needs of today while working for tomorrow’s justice. Ensuring that those who’ve been dismissed and discounted are truly seen and heard is a central task of discipleship – in our communities, our churches, our denomination and our world. It is the pastoral work of giving attention, of centering another’s testimony and voice, of praying and weeping together. Our prophetic witness is strengthened when we are also intentional about our pastoral presence, our willingness to be proximate to the pain. Our ministries and this season need the pastoral and the prophetic.

Conviction #3: Small numbers don’t equal small ministry.

Several months ago I was attending the 850th (!) anniversary of the Waldensian Synod in Italy, one of our global partner churches. During the celebration I was invited to bring greetings, and commented that the UCC and the Waldensian Church in Italy were both “small but mighty”. Later, a local member approached me and asked me about that remark. How big is the UCC, he asked. When I told him of our 4600 congregations and 712,000 members, he replied, “But that is quite large. You see, we only have 14,000 members in the entire Waldensian Church.” It was a moment of new perspective, to be sure. All the more so because I soon learned that this church, nearly decimated in the 17th century, somehow persevered and is today a truly ‘small but (nevertheless) mighty’ church bold in witness and service.

I’ve seen this same truth so many times as I’ve visited our global partners, from the Philippines to Haiti, East Timor to Hungary. Very frequently, even when their local context is riddled with challenge and their numbers are truly small, the impact of the ministries and presence of our global partners is far greater than their numbers would suggest.

United Church of Christ, the same is true for us. Our 2022 statistical profile included a special report on church communities beyond the numbers in worship and attendance. It found that many churches have “an incredible scope of engagement with their community, far beyond what one might expect from their worship or attendance numbers.” Ditto the impact of our advocacy and public witness. Our Public Policy & Advocacy team in Washington, D.C. set an ambitious goal for us in the first 100 days of the new president’s administration earlier this year, that collectively we would send 50,000 messages to Congress advocating for just and caring legislation. You exceeded that. In fact you sent over 53,000 messages to Congress just in that time period alone, and you haven’t stopped since!

Church, you can do amazing things! I experienced that very personally many years ago when I was Executive Director at Back Bay Mission. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina decimated the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Back Bay Mission along with it, there were days when I was uncertain if that beloved, historic UCC organization could come back from it. But then the United Church of Christ showed up. The national setting’s disaster ministries came alongside us and granted financial and moral support. Congregations and volunteers came to us in unprecedented numbers, helping us rebuild the community even as we slowly recouped our own devastated facilities. Our CHHSM organizations helped.  Your financial gifts poured in. And your unending prayers surrounded and upheld us. Susan Sanders, a UCC national staff member at that time, reassured me in the first days after the disaster that “the United Church of Christ would love Back Bay Mission back to life”, and she was exactly right. I will never forget it or fail to give thanks for it as long as I live.

Our voice, our witness, and our work may sometimes feel inadequate and small in the face of so much that overwhelms and enrages us, but Jesus said that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, and I’ve seen it to be true. We rightly grieve the declining numbers of people in our churches and the closure of so many of our precious congregations nationwide. But we cannot let our losses & our grief become our excuse to do nothing. We can still do big things. We have ministries fueled with heart and passion that impact our communities and world. Every hungry person you feed, every protest you show up for, every disaster you respond to, every community conversation your church convenes, every global partnership you hold, every witness for justice and extravagant love you dare to raise in resistance to the voices of hate and exclusion and harm simmering all around us…. All these are evidence of your big and bold ministries, your precious contributions to the mandate of Micah to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with our God. I will never underestimate our collective capacity to make a difference in this world, and I hope you won’t either. Smaller numbers do not equate to small ministries and impact.

36 years ago, I embarked on a journey with a trembling heart, uncertain of a call that was just starting to evolve. Tonight I’m still amazed by how God has led me down so many unexpected paths, and I stand before you grateful for every experience and spiritual companion that has so profoundly blessed me along the way. This church has been my spiritual home since the day I was born, and it has formed my faith and helped shape the way I show up in the world every day since.

If it’s God’s will and the will of this General Synod, I am ready to continue serving in this church I have long loved: ready to partner with you and build our relationships, to see you and listen deeply to you and to our global partners, to witness alongside you with the boldness of the prophets, and to keep celebrating the faithful ministry we can accomplish together, far beyond our own imagining. May God continue to grant each one of us courage in the ongoing struggle for justice and peace, and faith enough to trust in the future God has surely promised.

The Reverend Shari Prestemon began her service with the national ministries of the United Church of Christ in January 2024. As the Acting Associate General Minister & Co-Executive for Global Ministries she has the privilege of overseeing several teams: Global Ministries, Global H.O.P.E., Public Policy & Advocacy Team (Washington, D.C.), and our staff representative to the United Nations. She previously served as pastor to local UCC congregations in Illinois and Wisconsin; the Executive Director at the UCC’s Back Bay Mission in Biloxi, Mississippi; and as Conference Minister in Minnesota.