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Sparrow is called to national UCC post
June, 2001
After 15 years as the Massachusetts Conference’s Central Area Minister, Richard Sparrow has accepted a call to serve as the Search and Call Coordinator at the national setting of the United Church of Christ.
“I leave Massachusetts with deep gratitude for all that has been and go to Ohio with great enthusiasm for all that will be,” Sparrow said.
As a part of the Parish Life and Leadership Team within Local Church Ministries at the national setting, Sparrow will be working with Conferences and seminaries rather than with individuals. He begins in the new post Sept. 1.
Sparrow said that while he looks forward to new challenges, he will miss the daily, direct contact with clergy and churches.
“There are only a handful out of the 109 churches in the Central Area that I have not worked with in a pastoral search process,” Sparrow said. “Some I’ve worked with three or four times.”
“There hasn’t been a single day, even the tough days, when I have not felt honored to be doing what I’m doing,” he said. “To have clergy vulnerable enough to open their souls to me has been an honor. And to be with congregations when they’ve shared with me their pain and joy – I’ve been honored to be able to share with them and work with them and resource them.”
Sparrow has been a part of the Conference for 25 years, serving for 10 years as the pastor of the Village Congregational Church UCC in Whitinsville before becoming Area Minister. An Andover Newton Theological School graduate, he served a church in upstate New York before returning to Massachusetts.
Interim Conference Minister and President Erwin Bode said Sparrow will be sorely missed.
“Dick has been an outstanding area minister for the Central Association. He has served with great distinction the churches, the pastors and the members of the congregations,” he said. “We are happy that the national church is recognizing his abilities, even as we are sorry to see him leaving.”
Sparrow is the latest in a string of senior staff members who have left the Conference over the past year. Area Ministers in the Northeast, Western and Metroplitan Boston areas, as well as the Conference Minister, have retired or accepted calls elsewhere since the beginning of 2000.
Information on the Interim for the Central Area, and on the search process, will be in the July/August issue of the United Church News.