Faith Works 4-14-18
Jeff Gill
Endings leading to beginnings
___
When I first moved to Licking County in 1989, outside of the congregation that had called me one of the first gatherings I attended was of the Newark Area Ministerial Association.
A monthly gathering of clergy from all around Licking County, it was already decades in existence then; out of their weekday lunch meetings came the Licking County Jail Ministry which was just getting going as I arrived, and a few years later as we assembled the basis of the Licking County Coalition for Housing in 1992, NAMA was the springboard for much of the cooperative and collaborative efforts of area churches into areas like housing and hunger and helping in general.
NAMA was also the sponsor for the annual community Thanksgiving service, and Holy Week services including a noon to 3 pm Good Friday service, the "Tre Ore" observance which had been in and around downtown Newark since the early 1960s. Quite a number of other community events leaned on NAMA to provide basic support and logistics and personnel through the year.
I left for West Virginia in 1993, returned to the county and Hebron in 1999 and quickly got back involved with the jail ministry and the Housing Coalition, but it wasn't until I was called to the pulpit and back into full-time Christian ministry with Central Christian in Newark, in 2012, that I came back to NAMA meetings.
It was clear that quite a bit had changed in the time in between. Many of the stalwart congregations in the NAMA fold had changed, mostly smaller; many of the pulpits from which NAMA members came were served in those days by interims and retired ministers, who often lived not just outside of town but outside of Licking County. Not a few of the other full-time ministers lived away, and a number were bivocational, so their weekday job meant a lunch on a Thursday wasn't something they could attend.
We jumped around, different days, into breakfasts, but still mostly weekdays; we tried meeting at non-church locations in Heath and Newark, but the number attending kept shrinking. Some churches called new clergy who said to those of us who invited them "I don't do community stuff," others said "I would if I could find the time."
And two years ago, the CROP Walk committee said to a few of us "if you don't jump in and save it, we won't have one." I've been on CROP committees in three states and always supported the concept, but I didn't offer to join the effort and it didn't happen last year, either. I was chided by a colleague for not doing so, but I explained my commitments and involvements, and said "it's too much as it is, what would you have me drop to add that?"
About the same time the Thanksgiving service almost wasn't, and I offered our church building, not downtown but willing and we hosted. I have a sentimental attachment to such services (another column) and I hated to see it go. Last November I was asked if I could take it on, and I had to decline due to a family scheduling conflict . . . and for the first time in probably half a century here, and for nearly that in my own life, there was no service Thanksgiving week.
Holy Week has been a complex web of services in years past, but up to a dozen clergy involved; this year, my vocal cord procedure and lack of voice took me out, and I learned it was all basically two ministers and a lay leader who covered it all. And it was, one of them said, too much.
So, not to draw this out too long: we met last week, and concluded NAMA as an organization. It has served God's purposes for generations, and it now has come to a time of passing on. And in passing, perhaps after a season in the ground, something new will sprout.
I already imagine a quarterly gathering, on a Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon, with a different list of necessary events a County Christian Leaders Summit could support. Some of the old ones might come back, but it can't be all about sentiment. We need to pray together, discern wisely, and choose with humility. What was traditional yesterday may not serve tomorrow as well, and we need to let some traditions, and even bad habits, pass on.
So that something new might be born, but receive a valuable legacy passed on, by groups from our community history such as NAMA.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's been a member of NAMA for years and will also be glad to say he was. Tell him what you think might be ready to be birthed into our community at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
