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Symposium III

The NACCC Desert Begins to Bloom

This is a letter to all true Congregationalists, lay and ministerial, inviting them to attend the Third Congregational Symposium, which will be held at First Congregational Church of Los Angeles January 24-27, 2002.

I am an old preacher and sermonic habits die hard, so this epistle has a text: "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose . . . a highway shall be there, and a way." (Isaiah 35:1, 8.)

A desert is not only a place of fierce landscapes—it is a place with few people. And that has been true of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches in recent years. In 1976, we topped out with an individual membership of 102,000 plus. It has been downhill since then. The 2001 NACCC Yearbook gives sobering evidence that numerically speaking our fellowship is an ecclesiastical wasteland. There are 16 pages on which only one member church has made a report or given a gift. There is one page shamefully blank and bare. And while there are no precise figures available, estimates by recent Executive Secretaries indicate that our individual membership is approximately 70,000. The Congregational Way has been wending through a barren, flowerless land.

But a time of new blossoming began in 1998, when Dr. Steven A. Peay called a Symposium at First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, at which 180 Congregationalists gathered to think, talk, and pray, not about mere housekeeping ways and means, but about the Congregational Idea itself—the bold and invigorating doctrine of the free, autonomous local church complete in ecclesiastical power under the headship of Christ and linked in fellowship with sister churches. The great Idea had been forgotten. But the Wauwatosa Symposium remembered it, and that remembrance was the first bloom on the desert way we had been wandering.

In 2000, Dr. Leo D. Christian of Derry, New Hampshire, called a second Symposium. And once again, the basics of the great Idea were the foci of thought and prayer. These two men—one a former priest (Steven Peay), one a layman, who came to us from a rigid, tightly controlled church—appreciated "the freedom wherewith Christ has set us free" with a passion which we traditional custodians of the Pilgrim heritage had lost. Because of their zeal and insight, in the years to come the Congregational Way will be a highway of holiness through a desert of time, brightened by new blossoms.

The First Congregational Church of Los Angeles Symposium will have the theme " . . . More light and truth: Congregationalism, Covenant, and Community." A notable list of distinguished scholars will speak to that theme. But this letter is not simply addressed to Doctors of Divinity and Philosophy: it calls for the presence of faithful ministers and church members who are bearing the burden and heat of the day in local churches. Congregationalists believe in the priesthood of all believers, parishioners as well as pastors. This epistle pleads for the attendance of pastors and people who are ready, able, and willing to walk our Way across the desert of these critical times.

Scripture warns us that when God led Israel to freedom, it was not over an easy, well- traveled road, but along the perilous paths of the Sinai desert. And that desert was not only a dry and weary land. It was a perilous place—the abode of wild beasts, the night monster, vultures and dragons. The desert of our day is also dangerous, and on September 11, 2001, our land was smitten by a dragon matching the great Dragon of the Apocalypse in power and wickedness.

Now I am going to leave the poetry of scripture and write the purpose of this letter in plain, hard prose. Coming to Symposium 2002 will not be an easy trip. Money will be tight, and air travel, with its new restrictions and fears, will no longer be a thing of pleasure. Attendance will call for dedication and some sacrifice; a sacrifice I urge you to make for the sake of tomorrow’s Congregationalism.

But this letter is no jeremiad of defeat and despair. Already buds are burgeoning into blooms. There was a new spirit at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the NACCC in Lansing. There was "holy fun." Ten new churches entered into our fellowship and in August Congregationalism came to Korea (page 16). This Symposium will proclaim what covenanted Congregationalism can mean, not only for our local communities but for those on the widening highway of tomorrow. These present happy portents are bright blossoms on the road of the Congregational Way and the promise of the Word—"the desert shall blossom as the rose"—will be fulfilled.

Come to Los Angeles and take your place in this historic pilgrimage.

Rev. Dr. Harry R. Butman, chair, Symposium III.

P.S. The Biblical basis of this epistle is Isaiah 35. Read it, preferably in the King James version—aloud.

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