Finding a job for Lent

I serve a wonderful congregation.  Union Congregational UCC in Somonauk, IL is vibrant, growing, friendly, caring, nurturing, invitational, and missional.  And we're also in a difficult financial position. Effective May 1, we're transitioning from having a full-time pastor to having a part-time pastor.  And I'm the full-time pastor at present.

So I'm seeking opportunities. I'm looking for a job this Lent.  I have experience or skills in, and would love to work in, any of the ministry areas I'm listing below:

• Interim Ministry
• Settled Ministry
• Senior Pastor
• Solo Pastor
• Associate Pastor
• Youth Ministry
• Spiritual Formation-Christian Education
• Digital Media ministry opportunities
• Consultant ministry
• Writing 
• Retreat leading
• Beginning guitar lessons (Kirk Moore will teach you guitar)
• Songleading
• Association ministry
• Conference ministry
• National Ministry

The Moore family lives in Warrenville, Illinois.  I'm seeking opportunities I can commute to while keeping a home base here.  I'm open to travel for consulting, and I'm also open to shorter term opportunities where my commute is more lengthy.

This "Kirk's Resume Stuff" page has links to my resume and other background items that are helpful in finding out more and getting in contact with me.  And to keep things fresh in your mind, visit findingajobforlent.com anytime to come right here.

What are you planning for Lent?

Update:  6/11/12
I've been happily serving as the pastor of St. Paul's United Church of Christ in Downers Grove, IL since April 15, 2012.

Widening the Welcome - 3

And that's a wrap . . . except that it isn't.  The conference has ended - and Widening the Welcome has just begun!

Here are a few things I've experienced over the past day:

• We got to hear Nancy Kehoe and Debbie Creamer again. Each left me with a significant quote -- Nancy: "To share a meal around the same table is a sign of equality.  To break bread together is a sign of intimacy." Debbie: To have a lack of welcome in a place of faith communicates, ‘you aren’t welcome to God'"  These two presenters have both enriched my knowledge of ministry with people with disabilities and mental illness, they have equipped me to do better.
• Geoffrey Black, President and General Minister of the United Church of Christ, spoke to the conference at lunch on Saturday.  He was visibly moved by this gathering and inspired.  He called our conference groundbreaking and issued a challenge, "It’s time to stop writing resolutions and instead to act and build on them!" (or something really close to that.)  Geoffrey also said that he was going to tell all his Facebook friends about the event. (that made me chuckle and smile!)  Finally he said that Widening the Welcome is more than a conference.  He said that Widening the Welcome is a movement within the movement known as the United Church of Christ. 

The conference may have ended, but Widening the Welcome is just beginning!

I'm preaching this morning at a join worship service of The Church of the Open Door and Brentwood Congregational United Church of Christ in St. Louis.  After a church potluck (I love those!) and a planning meeting for what comes next with Widening the Welcome, (stay tuned!) I'm headed home.

Widening the Welcome Conference - 2

Has it only been one day?

I've been learning, having conversations, growing, and being inspired at the first Widening the Welcome conference in St. Louis.


A few brief observations:

• This is a whole lot to take in.  And I love it!
• The conference facilities at the Drury Plaza are marvelous!  The food is great, the rooms are great, almost  everything is working perfectly!  Our conference planner, Debbie Cowen from Summit Meetings, Inc, is someone I highly recommend to others working on conference planning!
• Our music leader, Martie McMane, is wonderful -- she plays guitar and has a voice that is reminiscent of both Joni Mitchell and Carole King.
• Jane Fisler Hoffman is courageous, engaging, funny, and the perfect preacher to start off our worship ties together.  My favorite quote from her sermon, "As a pastor, my many open mistakes have helped others to face theirs."
• Nancy Kehoe is a genius.  Her 25 plus years incorporating religious belief and spirituality and their role in treating mental illness show in her presentation.  I laughed a little, but cringed when she said, "Mental illness is a no casserole disease - when someone is diagnosed with schizophrenia no one brings over a casserole."
• Debbie Creamer offered us four new ways to look at, or images of God. The accessible God calls for an end to oppressive structures.  The interdependent God calls for us to remember that we all rely on one another.  The disabled God is revealed in the wounded Jesus -- with pierced hands and feet and sides.  The limits God reveal to us that limits are part of what it is to be human.  It takes everyone to make up the body of Christ.
• Craig Rennebohm's presentations on building a mental health team in local congregations are one of the main reasons I am at this conference.  I've learned much from his workshops so far, including the idea that in mental health ministry we need a psychological, biological, spiritual, and social approach to wellness.
• David Greenhaw is a passionate, dynamic speaker. His quote, "You have worth not because you are a producer.  You have worth because you are a child of God." made me want to stand up and cheer.

I'm continuing to post quotes (usually a bunch at once after writing things in that longhand way) on the Widening the Welcome facebook event page and on twitter.

More to come -- we're only half way through!

Widening the Welcome Conference - 1

I'm St. Louis bound today for Widening the Welcome - a national gathering sponsored by the UCC Mental Illness Network and UCC Disabilities Network.

It's a conference to help develop the life of congregations to include persons with disabilities and persons with mental illness/brain disorders and their families.  We meet at the Drury Inn in St. Louis for 3+ days of worship, workshops, sessions, and encouragement.  We'll be learning ways to build local church mental health ministries, to offer spiritual support for healing and recovery, to respond to trauma, to work with folks facing drug and alcohol abuse, and  to be more welcoming to those with brain disorders and disabilities.

I've been working with the group organizing this event for the past year, and I am so glad the conference is here!  I'm traveling with Rev. Robert Dell, co-founder of the United Church of Christ Mental Illness Network and Chair of Pathways to Promise.  Bob is also Pastor Emeritus of Union Congregational United Church of Christ in Somonauk!



I'll post a few entries while I'm at the conference as well as posting on Twitter and Facebook.  It's going to be a great weekend!
   

Online Ministry at Union Congregational United Church of Christ in Somonauk, IL

“The Internet isn’t an important part of the ministry of our congregation.”

If you ask folks at Union Congregational United Church of Christ in Somonauk, IL about how the Internet impacts the ministry of the congregation, many would likely say exactly that. On Sunday morning you’ll find very little evident computer technology and no Internet use during the worship service.

Yet the Internet provides a myriad of opportunities for folks in the congregation to be engaged in God’s ministry with each other, with the community and throughout the world. Over the past few years, we’ve found new ways to reach out to folks online through a number of resources:

• A church website that is continually updated with events, pictures, ministries, worship opportunities, sermons (text and podcasts) as well as links to United Church of Christ websites.
• A church blog that offers the even more frequent updates
• A church Facebook page that invites church members and friends to have online conversations about church life and to see even more frequent updates.
• A church myUCC group that is new and ready for new folks arriving at the United Church of Christ’s new online social network.
• A pastor’s blog that includes weekly Bible study thoughts as well as the usual “what’s on the pastor’s mind” blog entries.
• The pastor’s twitterfeed
• Sermon podcasts on the pastor’s blog as well as in iTunes

Each avenue of engagement provides an opportunity to reach folks in a manner many use now, and more will use in the future. Our small, rural congregation, where a little less than a hundred attend worship on a weekly basis, sees website traffic of 50-60 hits a week (per sitemeter) and has made connections with 40+ folks on Facebook. The sermon podcasts have about 40 subscribers (per Feedburner statistics) and the new myUCC group has . . . well . . . that one hasn’t grown much at all yet.

Internet ministry isn’t the only or even the primary way folks connect at Union Congregational United Church of Christ in Somonauk, but it is already a vital part of the life of the church and an avenue of connection that will continue to grow.

Internet ministry at Union Congregational United Church of Christ in Somonauk, Illinois:

• New
• Vital
• Growing

Women

Last week, at a Church Planting Conference, the pastor of Mars Hill in Seattle, Mark Driscoll, made (on video) what I think are some pretty degrading allusions (is that the right word?) about women in ministry. In the video, he kept talking about having the right MAN for church planting and at one point referred to women as "ladies" who love jesus (in a very "Men are totally superior to women" way.

I've been so bothered by this video. It did start a mini-fued between Driscoll and Bill Hybels. I'm really bothered because I don't think there should be any more debate or question as to whether women can and should be ministers. Women and men can both be ministers!

While I was lamenting the poison (did I say something caustic too?) Mr. Driscoll was spreading, I learned about this moving, uplifting and awe-inspiring video. It made me cry and it made me sing. Thank you, Jennifer.



ht to marko -- who I can ht again now that he's on his speaking sabbatical. I don't know why I can ht him again -- I just decided I could, so there.

Relaxing -- kind of

I've been off the grid
I spent a week in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Northern Minnesota.

No politics
No email
No blogging (well, I hadn't done that for about a month anyway)
No showers

Of course, I was the leader of a group that totaled 33 people.

I'd love to go back with a few friends sometime. I think it was and would be marvelous!