September 2, 2004

Almaden Valley United Church of Christ has new interim minister
Congregation begins work to find new minister and discover identity

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

The new and specialized field of interim ministry has come to the aid of Almaden Valley United Church of Christ (AVUCC), which lost its pastor of five years in April.

Under the leadership of Interim Minister Paul Smith-Telfer the church has begun the lengthy selection process for a new permanent pastor, which requires its membership to identify itself and its mission for the future.

The seven-member AVUCC search committee has prepared a survey that each of the church’s approximately 200 members will complete and which will help the congregation rediscover itself.

The committee is also coordinating several small meetings during the next six to eight weeks to determine who they are as a church and how they see themselves in the future.

Committee members were nominated by the AVUCC Council—the governing body of the church—and elected by the congregation at a special meeting last June. The committee will create a church profile that will be matched against the resumes of applicants for the permanent pastoral position.

The profile is expected to be ready by the end of the year and will be sent to the UCC Northern California Nevada Conference (NCNC), which will send it to the Cleveland-Ohio-based national UCC offices for inclusion in a monthly publication for denomination ministers looking for work. Ministers interested will request the AVUCC profile from the conference office in Hayward. Between 40 and 50 profiles will be reviewed, conducting telephone interviews and bringing the candidates down to the area for formal interviews, Smith-Telfer explained.

The 65-year-old interim minister, who began his interim ministry duties at AVUCC in early June, explained he chose to go into interim ministry because he’s close to retirement and wanted a different challenge. To become an interim minister he took a specialized training class in Redwood City from the Baltimore, Maryland-based Interim Ministry Network, learning how to help a church come to terms with its history, gain an identity, deal with its vision for the future and connect with the NCNC, the judicatory body of the denomination.

Smith-Telfer replaced the Rev. Julianne Stokstad who left the congregation in April citing personal reasons. During his temporal stay at the church, he will provide on-going pastoral leadership, compassionate care and help resolve grief and conflict issues.

Those who study church life have discovered that if a church moves too quickly in calling a new pastor, he or she may only stay a short time, thus becoming an “unintentional interim,” Smith-Telfer explained.

“Once they discover who they are as a congregation they’re ready to look for a minister to fit their needs,” he said.

In the UCC denomination, as well as in other Protestant mainline denominations, the process can take between 18 months and two years.

Prior to his interim ministry at AVUCC, Smith-Telfer served as interim minister for two years at Santa Rosa Congregational UCC. Before that, he served as the call pastor for several churches in northern California beginning in 1977 at the First Congregational Church of Oroville; Sierra Arden UCC in Sacramento; Little Brown Church of Sunol; and First Congregational Church of Oakland where he served for 13 years.

Smith-Telfer signed an agreement saying he will not stay as the permanent pastor at AVUCC, but he admits it’s difficult to not fall in love with a congregation. Of his interim ministry experience in San Rosa, he said: “I came to enjoy and love those people very much. It was a wonderful place for me. People would say to me, ‘Why can’t you be our minister?’ It was very flattering, but I knew going in that this was going to end. It’s hard to say goodbye.”

The church will have to provide a salary and housing for its new permanent minister, with guidelines given by the NCNC. Many churches in the conference, however, fall short of the guidelines, making the selection of a qualified pastor even more difficult.

Smith-Telfer, who lives in Pleasanton, predicts it’s going to be challenging for the congregation to find a new minister with the high cost of housing in the valley.

“They’re going to have to do more and dig deeper to attract someone to the area,” he said.

Smith-Telfer also said the average age of seminary students is mid 30s and many are serving as ministers as a second career, with more women graduating than men. Many go into ministry with huge financial education debts.

Born in Boston, Mass., Smith-Telfer grew up in Chicago and New York. His father was a minister for the Congregational Christian Churches, which merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Churches in 1957, officially creating the UCC denomination.

He attended Allegheny College in western Pennsylvania and then studied at Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts. He then served as a chaplain for the United States Air Force from 1964 to 1976.

He has three children and four grandchildren. He’s married to Polly Smith-Telfer, who has two children.
Smith-Telfer enjoys gardening, photography, baseball, skiing, hiking, and reading.

“I’m excited to be here,” said Smith-Telfer. “It’s a good solid congregation. It has a good sense of itself with a good history. It’s had its ups and downs and has some issues it has to deal with in terms of who it is and how it sees itself, but that’s typical of most congregations.”

The Almaden Valley United Church of Christ, 6581 Camden Ave., San Jose, CA 95120; offers Sunday worship services at 9 a.m. and Sunday School and adult religious education at 10:10 a.m. Child care is provided. For more information call 268-0243 or visit the church’s Web site, www.avucc.org.