547 Harney Street, Custer, South Dakota 57730, United States
NEWS
An Update on the Wider United Church of Christ
Two weeks ago, the South Dakota Conference held its strategic visioning retreat for Placerville Camp. The meeting was a success, generating good discussion and new ideas. These include the possibility of hiring an assistant camp director and/or bookkeeper specifically for the camp, the need to have better personnel policies for the camp, and enthusiasm for the long-term future of the camp. More concrete, next steps will come from the SD Conference’s next board of directors meeting, which is scheduled for March 14th.
Related to Placerville, we’re getting to that time when youth need to be filling out camp registrations, and especially camp scholarship forms if they want to receive a scholarship. I’ll be working on getting those distributed through Kid’s Time and confirmation, but if you know that you or your child need registration and/or scholarship application forms, see me.
Finally, I just want to say a word about UCC polity. I’ve heard some complaints and concerns from members of the Custer Community Church about actions or statements of other UCC churches or of the national setting of the UCC. I just want to remind you that the UCC has a covenantal polity, which means that we agree live together in a covenant of mutual respect, caring, and growing. We agree to listen to, and consider, what other settings of the UCC are saying and doing. But we aren’t obligated to agree. The others settings of the UCC speak to us, not for us. We are free to make our own decisions and take our own actions on the issues that affect our church.
So, please, remember that just because it’s happening in some other corner of the UCC doesn’t mean it’s going to happen here. And, as always, feel free to talk to me directly about any concerns you might have.
Blessings,
Pastor Dustin
An Update on the Wider United Church of Christ
The Black Hills Association meeting was hosted by our church, and it was a great event. We had two different associate conference ministers join us for Sunday morning’s worship service and for the afternoon meeting. At that meeting, First Congregational Church of Chadron requested to join the Black Hills Association and was accepted. It was decided that on Saturday, October 5th, I would lead a retreat to help the association develop a clearer sense of mission and brainstorm new ministries. Dee Anderson became the association moderator and our own Paul Nettinga is set to become the vice-moderator.
Through our two mission workshops, the South Dakota Conference board came up with the following mission statement: “To live into God’s extravagant welcome and advocate for justice so that all know love, safety, belonging and dignity.” There will be more information about the new mission statement and the process that was used to craft it at the annual meeting.
Speaking of which, the annual meeting will be June 14th, 15th, and 16th in Omaha. Our church’s delegates are Hunter Rice, Vachel Rice, and Martha Schilling. And, of course, I will be attending as your pastor and as a member of the conference board of directors.
In fact, I will be gone from the 12th through the 27th in order to attend both the annual conference meeting in Omaha as well as the General Synod of the United Church of Christ in Milwaukee. And not just me – Hunter Rice and my wife, Pam, are also General Synod delegates for the South Dakota conference.
You can read more about Hunter’s participation in the wider church at:
http://www.ucciaconf.org/11827/sdyouth
Blessings,
Pastor Dustin
