Rev. Deborah Hill has been approved by the Committee on Church and Ministry ‘A’ to approved for ordained ministerial standing in the UCC. Her Ecclesiastical Council will still be held on April 26 at 3 p.m. Arizona time / 4 p.m. New Mexico and El Paso time, but via Zoom.
The Zoom details have been emailed to parish clergy in the conference who may invite up to three members of their congregations to be voting attendees to the EC. This event will not be live streamed to Facebook as previously planned.
The Committee on Church and Ministry-A of the Southwest Conference UCC has recommended the Rev. Deborah Hill for an Ecclesiastical Council for the purpose of approving her for Ordained Ministerial Standing in the United Church of Christ. Rev. Hill was originally ordained by the African Methodist Episcopal Church; she relinquished her standing in that denomination, and is now seeking approval for Ordained Ministerial Standing in the UCC.
As Rev. Hill is coming from a denomination that does not have a formal agreement with the United Church of Christ, but now seeks authorization and standing in the UCC, the UCC Manual on Ministry instructs Committees on Ministry to use their discretion as to the path of discernment most appropriate. Rev. Hill has been a Member in Discernment with the Southwest Conference since October 2018. Her paper for ordained ministerial standing will soon be available on the First Congregational UCC - Albuquerque website.
You may read her Ordination Paper HERE.
You may read her paper on The Marks of Faithful and Effective Authorized Ministers of the UCC HERE.
Normally an EC is for approval for ordination pending call. So, all the terminology circles around "ordination." But, for this EC, since Deborah was already ordained in the AMEC, what we are doing is recommending that she be "APPROVED FOR ORDAINED MINISTERIAL STANDING IN THE UCC."
Some might ask why this isn't just Privilege of Call...it's not, because Privilege of Call is 1) for people coming from denominations that have formal agreements with the UCC (which the AMEC does not), and 2) is primarily for the ability to enter the UCC search process. Once the search ends with a UCC call, the Privilege of Call concludes and the clergy has "Ordained Ministerial Standing." Deborah already has a call to chaplaincy, so she's not wanting to enter the search process. So, basically what COCAM-A is recommending and the EC is considering is simply to approve her for Ordained Ministerial Standing in the UCC.
This will be the first time holding an Ecclesiastical Council via Zoom. All SWC churches may have up to 3 delegates plus all UCC authorized ministers may vote, however, we do have a limit of 100 people on our Zoom calls, so we will give space priority to lay and clergy delegates from Northern New Mexico should we need to.
First time Zooming?