He’s been in the job for five months, but tomorrow is the day the Rev. Donald C. Anderson gets officially installed as new executive minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches.Chosen last spring to succeed the Rev. John Holt, Mr. Anderson, 59, says he is optimistic about the future of the state’s oldest and largest ecumenical agency.
Not only is there a strong desire on the part of religious leaders to work together, he says, but he also sees a “genuine interest by people outside the church world” — be they the government agencies or nonprofit groups confronting issues of poverty or the environment — to have the “faith community at the table.”
Fresh from the annual meeting of the National Council of Churches in New York, Mr. Anderson says there has been a major shift in recent years toward what is going on at the grass roots.
“IT’S A RECURRING THEME. If we exist, what justifies our existence? Part of it is facilitating and enhancing the ministry of local churches. It’s not the only thing, but it’s an important element. The other thing is we are one of the key ways Christian churches are able to participate in dialogue and interfaith cooperation.”
An example of the latter, he says, came earlier this week when he was invited to an interfaith discussion involving local clergy and student organizations at Brown University.
“I sensed a real desire by the student organizations for more interfaith dialogue. This is something that we, as an ecumenical organization, can provide.”
That sort of interfaith cooperation is expected to be reflected not only in tomorrow’s installation service, to which Muslim and Jewish leaders have also been invited, but also in a statement in the works that Mr. Anderson has been working on with Rabbi Alan Flam and Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin on “moral budgeting.”
Budget decisions, regardless of how money is spent, are made against a moral backdrop, says the minister.
“We feel it is incumbent on us to suggest a framework that legislators and others in government should look at,” Mr. Anderson said.
“This is where the interfaith piece comes in. A statement that has the support of the Catholic Diocese, the Board of Rabbis and the Council of Churches may have a better chance of being noticed than if we did it alone.”
The new executive observed that changes over the last couple of years in the State Council of Church’s bylaws have enabled it to become flexible when it comes to setting up task forces on homelessness, domestic violence and the environment and one, now being formed, on racism.
In the area of church networking, he predicts there will soon be a task force on small church ministry, something dear to his heart, given that most of the churches in the Council, spread over 13 denominations, have less than 100 members.
Those pastors, he says, have a hard job. Not only is their pay low, requiring many to hold two jobs, but the expectations of people in small churches can be just as high, or even higher, than in larger churches.
“It can be lonely or discouraging, because even if you are doing wonderful ministry and helping people grow, you don’t get that outward affirmation because you don’t see the church swelling with people,” Mr. Anderson said.
“We need to try to support those pastors. More immediately we’re going to try to get them together and ask them what we can do in the short term. One of the things I’d like to see us do is provide opportunities for continuing education, maybe eventually find some money to allow a pastor to go to a conference on pastoral care issues for which they would not have the resources.”
These days, as churches become more locally oriented, it’s not as easy as it once was to get people thinking about the needs of the wider global community. One way to shake things up, he says, is to take people on a mission trip. “Just talking about these things doesn’t seem to reach people anymore,” he says. “These days it has to be more hands on.”
In April, he will be taking a group for the sixth time to the Dominican Republic to work on ahospital, and he noted that just last week, Rhode Island Episcopal Bishop Geralyn Wolf was part of a group of Rhode Island clergy that built houses in New Orleans.
Mr. Anderson also has a trip in the works that he believes can be fruitful. He and Rabbi Amy Levin of Temple Torat Yisrael are working to organize a trip to the Holy Land for 40 Rhode Island clergy in the spring of 2009.
To have that many clergy — Jews, Christians and maybe other faiths as well — going on a trip together could have amazing implications for a state this size, he says.
“Relationships would develop and that could lead to an incredible amount of cooperation and creativity, especially when we work on issues that pertain to the most vulnerable members of society.”
THE EXECUTIVE director says an aspect that needs to be woven into everything is the theological perspective provided by the Council’s Faith and Order Commission.
“For me the faith and order portion of ecumenism is really the soul because we believe that in Christ we are one. It’s a mystical union, and the ecumenical movement has been called to give visible evidence of that union in the life we share together. We need to talk about that, and hopefully, the result of those conversation’s aren’t just pie in the sky kinds of things but things that lead us to a sense of openness and being able to work together. Sure, there may be things that we disagree about, but there are also places we can work together and find common ground. Faith and Order is important because it helps to frame our discussions theologically, so we’re not just another social service agency.”
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