Three members of First Baptist traveled to New Orleans to help rebuild homes still unrepaired after Hurricane Katrina struck the city in 2005. Our congregants Aleta Bryant, Cindy Watson, and Bob Wilson participated as part of a joint-effort sponsored by the American Baptist Churches/USA, Church World Service, and other denominations. Click here for the article featured in the Bennington Banner.

To learn more, watch this video, featuring all three congregants appear in the opening housepainting footage, and then hear from ABC and CWS staff celebrating the good work).

For more information, visit the special website assembled by ABC National Ministries.

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On Pentecost Sunday (May 31, 2009), First Baptist welcomed the Rev. Dr. A. Roy Medley, General Secretary of the American Baptist Churches/USA, as our morning speaker. Dr. Medley's visit made the front page news of the Bennington Banner.

Click here to read the article.

(Featured L to R: Rev. Dr. A. Roy Medley, ABC/USA General Secretary; the Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot, coordinating minister, FBC Bennington; and the Rev. Rohn Peterson, acting executive minister, American Baptist Churches of Vermont and New Hampshire)

As we look ahead to the New Year, I suggest that First Baptist mark 2009 as a festive year. In 2009, Baptists celebrate a major anniversary: the 400^th anniversary of our religious tradition. In the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries, the Protestant Reformation was well underway, however, some religious groups still experienced persecution and harassment even by those who were reformers themselves. A group of English dissidents fled to Amsterdam, a safer place for religious tolerance. By 1609, English pastor John Smyth’s congregation began articulating religious views we now look back upon as the earliest evidence of a Baptist way of believing and practicing the faith.

Throughout 2009, you will receive notes about our Baptist history and heritage through special bulletin inserts, newsletter articles, and congregational events highlighting the spiritual hallmarks of our tradition. Keep an eye out for announcements of special opportunities via the congregation’s various ways of communication: email, website, newsletter, and bulletin. It is my hope that the congregation will see our tradition’s “big 400^th” as an opportunity to celebrate our past, reflect on our present day identity, and deepen our resolve to keep the Baptist tradition alive and well into the future.

This January, U.S. citizens recognize the only civic holiday named in honor of a religious leader: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The legacy of Dr. King takes on a particularly poignant note this year as the King holiday falls on the day before the inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation’s first African American president. A number of organizations are encouraging communities to celebrate the King holiday and the new opportunities presented by the incoming White House administration by hosting local events or dedicating themselves anew to local grassroots initiatives.

By happy providence, First Baptist and other interfaith-minded religious communities are doing just that with the dedication and grand opening of the Bennington Free Clinic the week before. On Wednesday, January 14, 2009, from 5-7 PM, the community will celebrate the dedication with local and state leaders attending to help cut the ribbon. I encourage every congregant to attend the dedication so you can enjoy the words of thanks and recognition for your part in making this community initiative take flight.

This clinic will offer free healthcare to adults, especially the seventeen percent of Bennington County residents (ages 18 to 64) who are without health insurance. On Thursday, January 15, 2009, the Free Clinic will begin its weekly efforts to help our community members in need, utilizing space at First Baptist every Thursday evening and the skills of various area doctors and other medical professionals and community volunteers. To donate or volunteer, call 802/442-3700 and talk with Sue Andrews.

The Free Clinic is illustrative of First Baptist’s growing understanding that our congregation has a Missional calling. With the tutelage of Dr. Ron Carlson of ABC/USA National Ministries in the past (and the future—we’re hoping to have Ron back in early March 2009), First Baptist is considering what it means to be a Missional church. Dr. Carlson is crossing our nation working with congregations just like First Baptist, and I believe we are hearing his good word about the future of our faith (and the change necessitated to get there!). As part of his introduction to Missional church training, Dr. Carlson writes,

You have been chosen to live during the most accelerated rate of change in human history. Human knowledge is doubling every two years. Think for a moment of all the ways life has changed in the last fifty years: communication, technology, medicine, science, culture, global economy. How has all this change affected the church?

Just fifty years ago, eight out of ten Americans got up on Sunday morning and went to Christian worship. Today fewer than two out of ten Americans attend worship on any average Sunday. What changed? Everything!

As Christians, we believe that the gospel message of Jesus is good news for every era, and we know that the church has adjusted to every new challenge in each new generation. How will the church respond to today's challenge?

Missional church is a growing movement throughout America in response to this time of change. A missional church is "an authentic community of faith that primarily directs its ministry focus outward toward the context in which it is located and to the broader world beyond”.

Along these same lines, Dr. Troy Jackson, a minister and author of a new book on Dr. King, explores how the Missional church movement harmonizes with the thought of Dr. King. He writes, “King would challenge you to think first about the welfare of your community rather than the size of your congregation the next time someone asks how your church is doing”.

While we are not a congregation of considerable size, First Baptist seems to be coming to terms with being “smaller than we used to be” and reframing its identity and ministry around the new day at hand. Whether it is renting space to non-profits, cooperating with other religious communities on common ground efforts, or engaging in creative projects with our own congregants, First Baptist has much to offer. Let the year 2009 serve as a time to remember the past and go forward boldly into the future as the heirs of Smyth and King.

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot, coordinating minister

“Building Ministry”

When you think of First Baptist, rightfully you think of the people first. Each congregant brings something unique and diverse to our church and its ministries, and together we live out the faith as American Baptists, committed to the continuing story of the First Baptist Church of Bennington, Vermont. At the same time, when we think of “First Baptist”, we also bring to mind the physical edifice that sits on the corner of Valentine and Main Street. Indeed, we are graced with a beautiful building where our worship and spiritual life take place week to week.

As we think about the church in a time of transitional ministry, we should take note of the good things that have been happening with our building since the congregation entered into a three-year interim period. The trustees have brought about several improvements to the aesthetics of the building with new floor tile in the hallways, a beautifully renovated church lounge, new paint here and there, a handicap accessible bathroom, and a facelift for the church office area.

[On this latter count, let me extend gratitude for the redesign of the pastor’s office. The new ceiling, better lighting, a good size closet and storage space, and the reconfiguration of my workspace is quite helpful. The pastor’s desk no longer dwarfs the useable floor space, so it has been wonderful to welcome people into my office for conversations and meetings. I am working on making the pastor’s office more as the pastor’s study, less of a place geared toward an administrator’s office, and more a place where you can sit down and talk about the life of faith. I still have files and spreadsheets and committee notes piled here and there, but it is starting to feel more like a place where I can tend souls. I hope you will visit me in “the pastor’s study” and we’ll talk a spell.]

Another way that the building is changing can be noticed when you look at the “master calendar”. We have events, meetings, and other opportunities for the community to utilize our building, quite different from where we were a couple of years ago. First Baptist is becoming a great place for groups to meet, and Cindy Watson (in her role as building coordinator) is fielding phone calls to rent out space for events to community groups. This summer, we will be the site for three community events: June 7 is the annual Chocolate Festival and Play benefiting PAVE (The Project Against Violent Encounters). June 21 and 22 will be the Bennington County Chorale Society’s last concert of the season. We are working right now on arranging an evening in August featuring a rabbi and a Muslim who perform stand-up comedy that will be a riotous evening of interfaith mirth.

In May, the congregation voted affirmatively to install a lift to make our second floor accessible to all persons. The capital improvement (project cost: $32,000) will answer a long-standing problem with the Nichols Educational Wing, allowing everyone to access the great space we have upstairs. (Did you know that the second floor has more useable space and more bathrooms than downstairs?) While we are looking at this improvement as a necessary improvement to allow more use (and we hope more building rental income) for First Baptist’s space, I find the handicap accessibility that the lift and the new first floor bathroom symbolize as good theology at work. We are making “all persons” welcome, and when we complete the lift installation later this summer, we will take an opportunity to give thanks and bless these new and accessible additions to our physical space as sign and symbol of our increasing ministry of hospitality.

I also take joy in seeing how our space is allowing other groups to flourish. For the last several months, PAVE has offered a multi-week parenting course through its Family Time program. Families are encouraged to learn various skills to build healthy communication and relationships, and the program is growing as word of its helpfulness is getting around town. PAVE hopes to expand the program so they can keep up with the list of folks wanting to take this course. Your building is helping make these things possible!

Sometimes when we think of First Baptist, we think of the church building as the place we go Sunday to Sunday to receive the spiritual nourishment to get us through the week. Perhaps during the week, we might pop in for an event, a committee meeting, or something else that causes us to drop by the church. Know that as the congregation is rethinking its ministries and we are working together to bring about a new day, your building is also doing new things as well. Indeed, the tenets of faith are being lived out as we share our space and allow many good things to flourish through partnerships with community groups looking to improve the social, cultural, economic, and spiritual life of Bennington through time spent at that wonderful place we call “First Baptist”.

Keep our ongoing efforts in your prayers as well as the staff of the congregation as they help coordinate this work. Say a word of thanks to the hardworking trustee board, and give yourselves a pat on the back, too! Our desire to share the building is doing great things. It is indeed building ministry!

I write these words just after our Easter service, so there are a few alleluias still ringing in my ears from our hymns, prayers, and proclamation. Easter is the “center” of the Christian year, and the celebration of resurrection and new life is the constant rhythm underlying all of our religious observances. We are a people shaped by great hope!

Sometimes, though, that great hope seems a bit distant. We live in the midst of a challenging time as North American Christian congregations are largely in decline. Nevertheless, First Baptist has a unique opportunity to “practice resurrection” (poet Wendell Berry’s provocative phrase). Indeed, there are congregations just like First Baptist who are experiencing new life, even though the trends and experts would say otherwise. In part, this change is due to a willingness to look out at the unknown and start rowing towards it.

Last year, Ron Carlson from National Ministries introduced us to the concept of the missional church. Missional churches are congregations willing to look at their ministry with new eyes. “Mission work” becomes less of a line item in an annual budget for ministry in places elsewhere (global or national, but not “right here”) or the occasional provision of emergency benevolence funds or assistance when persons are in crisis. “Missional churches” are contrary minded enough to know that the measure of a congregation’s health is not attendance numbers at a service on Sunday morning. Rather, a congregation flourishes when the persons who are part of the congregation become involved in the issues and needs of the community where they are located. We become the “hands and feet” of Christ in the world.

Such congregations also realize that they do not need to depend on their own resources and people alone. Partnerships and creative networking will move a congregation forward when they want to get involved in their community. Congregations who become “missional” in their outlook begin to find themselves proclaiming the faith in a new way. Not just through Sunday morning worship or occasional acts of benevolence, but in ever deepening and creative ways.

Bits of this way of thinking are already showing fruit in the life of the congregation. This winter, the deacon board heard of the need in area schools for warm socks. Many children in our schools go through the winter without “winter weather appropriate” socks. A school nurse mentioned this, and the deacons began working on finding quantities of socks. In the end, shrewd shopping netted enough socks that three schools, rather than just one, received socks for children.

A missional approach to this scenario might look like this: congregants from First Baptist agree to learn more about the school children’s needs in Bennington area schools. They meet with school officials to learn what sorts of needs can be met (one early learning: school nurses need underwear as well as socks for children). Talking with social service agencies in town will build partnerships, so that whatever First Baptist helps coordinate is not redundant to already existing efforts. Congregants invite others that they know who would be interested in joining the effort: persons from other religious groups as well as persons who are not necessarily religious but feel some “common ground” or affinity with this project. The project becomes more organic than institutional: an effort began by First Baptist multiplies far more broadly than if just left to our own resources.

Missional ways also enhance the way that we share the gospel with other people. St. Francis of Assisi wisely said, “Preach the gospel always. Use words when necessary.” We still worship each Sunday to the glory and praise of God. The missional way, however, allows us to connect the faith we proclaim to the world in ways that will be as diverse as they are many.

Grace and Peace,

The Rev. Jerrod Hugenot

fbpastor@sover.net

Three Dates to Note

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot

Midway through seminary, students are required to complete two units of field education as part of training for ministry. At Central Baptist Theological Seminary (the alma mater of Kerry and myself), some students split their field work between a unit of hospital chaplaincy and service to a congregation. Others, already called into ministry, completed their ministry work with their employing congregation. I found myself at this time in seminary thinking, “I want to do something really different!”

I grew up in a congregation that had a long-time pastorate (1971-2001), and I felt like I was well acquainted with congregations enjoying a long and fruitful season of ministry thanks to my years as a congregant. So I set out to find a church that was experiencing transition.

Little did I know that years later, I would be writing this column sitting in Vermont, called to serve a congregation as part of a three-year intentional interim ministry period.

What did I learn seven years ago that still serves me well in the practice of ministry here at FBC Bennington?

The church that I served as an intern had gone through a difficult church split. A theologically progressive Baptist congregation in the Kansas City area, the church nonetheless encountered some impasses that resulted in a decision of some folks (about 180) to leave and reform a congregation elsewhere after things became untenable. The church found its own voice and footing over the next few years, thanks to a wise intentional interim minister and a group of very dedicated lay leaders. Some folks thought that the “new” congregation would struggle to make it, but little by little, healing, grace, and more than a little hard work created a viable core group who birthed a new church.

(2)  Transition means that loose ends can be tied up, and you can untie knots more easily.

The intentional interim minister was able to engage the congregation around some key questions of identity, purpose, and vision, while helping put the unfortunate and painful recent history into appropriate context. The church took the opportunity to relearn and redefine its basic understanding while also allowing new voices, ideas, and thoughts to add to the mix. (Also, more than a few skeletons were cleaned out of the closet, and a herd of elephants tromping around the middle of the room were able to be discussed freely and frankly.)

(3)  The more we talk of change, the more change happens.

When I look over the church newsletters and various mementoes from that internship period, I see more clearly that the leadership of the congregation was able to keep “change” at the forefront of the discussion. While other questions needed to be tackled (where do we meet after the current rental agreement runs out? How do we throw a good potluck? What Sunday school curriculum do we utilize?), the congregation kept asking itself questions that kept “the big picture” in front of them rather than just off to the side of the radar screen.

(4) “Congregationally led” is a beautiful and very good phrase for a bunch of Baptists to toss around in their conversation and planning for a new chapter in ministry.

The church split happened largely over a long history of allowing only one (or a few) voice set the agenda. In this case, the congregation allowed a minister to wield more power than prudent. The result for those who split and went to this other group was a common mantra: “We want to be congregationally led”. This was shorthand for acknowledging a very dear and essential bit of Baptist congregational identity and authority. The strongest Baptist congregation is one that is led by lay leadership. A pastor serves as the equipper of the saints and skilled shepherd of the flock, but the “tone” and “voice” of the congregation is set by the congregation working together, especially through key lay leaders trusted and called forth to discern wisely where the congregation’s ministry and mission can be best utilized.

I offer these thoughts as we prepare for the 2008 annual meeting. While the context and situation of our church differs from the one I served as an intern, I think what I learned along the way might be of use to us as well. Let me know your thoughts and responses to these reflections!

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot

I am writing to encourage your attendance of the next series in our Adult Education hour on Sunday mornings. I am grateful for the renewed ministry of education at First Baptist this year, celebrating a return to Sunday school “for all ages”. Over the next four Sundays (October 28 through November 18), we engage in talking about First Baptist’s need for a vision for our ministry. PLEASE PLAN TO ATTEND! YOUR CHURCH NEEDS YOUR VOICE!

In a time of transition, congregations find it helpful to assess where the ministries of the church are “right now” and discern where the church needs to be “next” in order to be relevant to the changing needs of the community as well as the internal life of the church. Vision statements help guide a church toward a new day for ministry, and so now is the time to help First Baptist begin discerning what a vision for ministry looks like.

The four Sundays are scheduled as follows:
October 28—Congregations benefit from regular opportunities to think about their ministry and use these insights to make course adjustments to the direction of a church. I will facilitate a discussion around the “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats” of First Baptist as an organization or spiritual community. Where do we see opportunities and ways to improve? This discussion is crucial to the remaining three Sundays, so I am hopeful that we will have close to fifty adults in the room discussing a very important issue: the present and future of YOUR congregation. (See the other side of this letter for thoughts on the SWOT analysis exercise to help you prepare.)

November 4—One of the key ways that a congregation makes its ministry happen is through a robust sense of stewardship. As the church is progressing through its first multi-week stewardship emphasis in years, the stewardship planners will guide the congregation through a new way of thinking about stewardship: more than just “talk about money”. Stewardship can be a way of expressing our gratitude to God through the giving of our time, our talents, and our tithes. In my absence, Darcy Oakes, Mary Harrington, and Cindy Watson will be facilitating worship and adult Sunday school that morning.

November 11 & 18—During these two Sundays, we will begin a process of discernment that culminates in a draft (or two) of a vision statement that helps First Baptist move forward in its ministry. Your voice is needed as we listen for God together, finding words that summon First Baptist to a new day for ministry. What will that vision statement look like? I am not even going to guess, other than that with many hearts and minds working together, we will hope to catch a bit of the Spirit’s calling as we look forward to a church that is ready to move forward!
Grace & Peace,

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot, Intentional Interim Minister

P.S.—This past week, we completed the first unit, a seven-week session utilizing our denomination’s Children in Poverty curriculum and the wisdom of speakers engaged in religious organizations endeavoring to address the hard questions posed by the social and economic realities of living in Bennington, Vermont. It is my hope that First Baptist will be in the midst of these questions, helping provide the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus, the One who left no child behind and indeed ministered to all in need. As disciples of Jesus, we can do no less!

As this fall gets underway, First Baptist will have further opportunities to explore and redefine itself. September marks the return of Sunday school for all ages. On Sunday mornings, we expand our religious education to include children and adults in a variety of classes during the 11 o’clock hour. As we prepare for 2008 (yes, now is the time!), we will experience a new type of stewardship emphasis over a series of Sunday mornings, led by Cindy Watson, Mary Harrington, and Darcy Oakes. New choral activities are being offered for children and adults on Wednesday afternoon and evenings. You may not think of “stewardship” or “choir” as a way that churches experience transition, but indeed, these are signs that the congregation is experiencing redevelopment. Each of these things is indeed “change” at work!

When discussing the experience of transition, the authors of Temporary Shepherds: A Congregational Handbook for Interim Ministry draw upon a line from a play by Marc Connelly called Green Pastures. Spoken by an old deacon, the line goes like this: “Everything nailed down is bustin’ loose!” Then the authors make the following observation:

“Congregations tend to think that they do not change over time, but nothing is further from the truth. Congregations change significantly as they respond to different pastoral leaders, to changes in their societal context, and to alterations in their internal circumstances.” (p. 8)

Two years ago this month, your last minister departed, and you began a search process in the form of a three-year season of interim ministry. Think about where First Baptist has been since you began talking of transition in the fall of 2005. What do you believe has changed or “bust[ed] loose”? What still seems “nailed down”?

I believe it is critical to the health of any congregation, whether an active membership of 20 or 200, that care is given to dealing with the inevitability of change. Most often, a change in pastor is the most visible, but the changes that occur when one’s ministry setting, or context, changes is equally important. Bennington has changed greatly over the past fifty years. How well do the congregation and its ministries connect with the community? Do we know our community well?

Attending the Children in Poverty study conducted this September and October will be an excellent opportunity for the adult congregants to reflect together on the realities of social and economic conditions in our community. I hope that the sessions will encourage some critical and careful thought about how First Baptist reinterprets its mission, vision, and identity.

After the Children in Poverty study concludes in mid-October, a series of workshops on “Vision” will be offered over the course of four Sunday school sessions for our adults. During this time, a team of lay leaders will lead the adults through a time of reflecting upon and dreaming about a vision for First Baptist. Too often, congregations in transition just settle for the minister setting the tone, and in the case of interim ministry periods, the congregation is even more tempted just “to wait until the real minister gets here” before getting too excited about much of anything.

Obviously, the past two years have not been just about waiting around. First Baptist has addressed some short-term and long overdue issues during this time. The reality, however, is that the work of transitioning the church into a new chapter of ministry is still underway. We need lay members and lay leaders to wrestle about “what’s busted loose” and “what’s still nailed down” in the ministry of the church. As we get closer to Thanksgiving, perhaps we can celebrate the autumnal harvest with a vision that brings us ever closer to being the healthy, intentional, and engaged congregation that you started yearning for two years ago.

In February, we had the opportunity to learn about being a “missional church” from Ron Carlson, who will be returning to instruct us again during the first weekend of June (June 1-3, mark your calendars now!). Part of the work of Ron’s first visit was to help us see that we are not going to get anywhere worrying about the pews that are empty. Instead, we need to learn how to empower those already here to be grow deeper in faith and more adept at using their gifts.

Right now, we’re doing great for a “small church” (defined as 60 or less), but if we wish to see the church flourish, it will take helping the people already here flourish in their own faith first. Adding ten more, let alone forty more adults every Sunday to these pews will be hard, but not unattainable work, and it will not happen immediately. If there’s any word of advice I try to give to myself, it is this: growth takes time and intention.

A good example of this is in the work of the altar guild, a group that didn’t exist a year ago. Little by little, talk about “sprucing up the church” began to get people who have interest and creativity together to plot out ideas for the church altar. These gifts are being put to use. Openness to try, willingness to risk, joy in experimentation, embracing the new. These were key factors in getting things going, but remember the beauty of it: gifts of people already here were finally able to be cultivated and called forth! God is already at work, bringing you and you and you here to this place. Now it’s time to figure out how to work with our giftedness!

And speaking of gifts, we need people to help us discern wisely our next steps in ministry. The board of trustees is actively taking on the challenge of getting the building more up and running for more community involvement. There will be some conversations about how we talk about stewardship and long-term management of our finances. There will be opportunities for people to get involved in issues around “Children In Poverty” down in Washington, DC, so they can come back and help us get involved in these critical matters.

The Christian education board is asking you to be part of a present day effort to return to “Sunday school” each week for all ages. It is part of our past, but I believe that if we are to have a future, Sunday school and other educational opportunities MUST be part of our present day work. Your time this morning will help educate the congregation about what we are already doing well (Sunday school for ages up to ten) while thinking about how we need to get adult education going, and continue the ministry of “Vacation Bible School” this summer with loads of helpful volunteers tending the children we know already and hopefully a dozen more kids who have never stepped foot in the church.