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Laura Lee Kent called as new Central Area Minister
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• Letter from the Search Committee |
January-February,
2003
By
Tiffany Vail
Laura Lee Kent, an Illinois pastor with experience ministering in a wide variety of settings, has been called as the new Associate Conference Minister for the Central Area.
Most recently, Kent served as pastor of the Mont Clare United Church of Christ in Chicago, an Anglo-American congregation with 14 members which she helped to merge with a 200-member Filipino UCC church.
Prior to that, she worked for many years in faith-based social justice ministries, working with those suffering from homelessness, poverty and abuse in Chicago and working with those infected by HIV and AIDS in Nashville and Newark.
“Laura Lee brings with her vast and varied experience of the United Church of Christ in all its settings, and is especially adept relating the Gospel outside the four walls of the church,” said Andrew Burr, chair of the search committee that unanimously recommended Kent to the Conference Board of Directors.
“We’re just ecstatic,” said Burr, pastor of the United Parish of Lunenberg. “She has a great understanding of what the UCC is and what it stands for, and she has a keen understanding of the joys and of the costs of the UCC.”
During the interview process, the search committee presented Kent with a scenario in which she was to lead worship, then have a discussion, at a church that was in conflict over the passage of a Conference Annual Meeting resolution which members did not feel reflected their own viewpoint.
“She led worship that really touched people, that was theologically grounded and authentic and engaging,” Burr said. “She spoke to how people relate to the church. It was clear that she got the UCC.”
Kent said she focused not on the specific issue brought up by the resolution, but on the larger picture.
“What I thought about was what a terrific, awesome thing it is that the church that is feeling lost would invite me to come,” she said. “What a privilege it is to come and engage in conversation. Then I talked about what it is to be in community with one another.”
Kent said she has felt called toward Conference work for some time.
“I love local churches, and when I met with Conference staff at a national search and call meeting, we had such wonderful conversations around the table because all of those people love local churches and care about what happens to them. That’s exciting to me,” she said.
Kent began her ministry in the local church, as pastor of the Holy Trinity United Church of Christ in Willingboro, New Jersey, from 1984 to 1990. It was during that time that she felt called to work with those affected by AIDS.
“It wasn’t that I felt called out of the local church, it was that I felt called into AIDS ministry,” she said. “In 1984, I met AIDS face to face. Within three weeks, I performed three funerals: one for the son of a parishioner, one for the friend of a friend and one for a special childhood friend who committed suicide when he was diagnosed with AIDS.”
After serving as the first Director of the AIDS Interfaith Network of
New Jersey, she went on to serve as Director of Client Services for
Nashville CARES, where
she supervised 25 staff and 18 programs to serve people with HIV and AIDS.
In 1998, she became the Director of Outreach & Health Ministries for the
Night Ministry in Chicago.
“The move to the Night Ministry was a way to keep one foot in the AIDS ministry, doing prevention work, but also to get into real active ministry,” she said. “Almost all of the staff there is UCC, so I was moving back directly into UCC stuff.”
Kent, who has a 19-year-old daughter attending college, has moved to Worcester. She officially began in her new post on Feb. 1st, and a reception in her honor will be held February 23rd, from 2 to 5 PM, at the Westborough Evangelical Church.
Kent takes the place of Harry Flad, who served as interim area minister
after Richard Sparrow was called to a post at the national setting
of the UCC.