Introduction to the Alliance of Associate Conference Ministers

(AACM)

For a number of years Associate Conference Ministers have been attempting to organize themselves that they might share information about how they are helping and stewarding the churches in their particular regions and also how they might share their roles and how the roles are constituted in our conferences.

Work begun tentatively with an exploratory team in 2018. In 2019 a number of Associate Conference Ministers gathered from across the country and together asked themselves what it would be like to have this formation and so the group began its deliberative work. At this time a steering committee was formed and the group started sharing how we do search and call, how we do clergy and congregational care, what are the ways in which we are helping people even now as we were and still are in the midst of a pandemic. We also started to share what our call agreements looked like and what a position description might be for an Associate Conference Minister. From there the group decided that they’d like to be an officially recognized group of the United Church of Christ.

We did our due diligence and we met with folks like the General Minister and president Rev. John Dorhauer and legal counsel Heather Kimmel. We met with the President and Chair of the United Church of Christ Board of Directors and we met with folks like Gordon Rankin who is the current chair of the Council of Conference Ministers. Each one of those settings in the life of the church affirmed and supported the formation of the Alliance of Associate Conference Ministers. We then had a special meeting with Associate Conference Ministers across the nation and talked to them about how we had moved forward with their desire to form ourselves and to be officially recognized.  

You have the opportunity during the 2021 Synod to affirm the resolution for the formation and creation of the Alliance of Conference Ministers to be an officially recognized group.  

Adapted from Rev. Darrell Goodwin, Executive Conference Minister of the Southern New England Conference