Thanks to the Search Committee and to Rev. Dr. Ken Williams

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1 Volume XXIII October / November Number 5 ABCCONN Calls New Executive Minister The Rev. Dr. Harry Dr. Riggs attended and received his M. Div. degree Riggs, II has been from Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in called to the Rochester NY. He also holds a D. Min. degree from position of Palmer Seminary, in Marriage and Family. He has Executive Minister been married for 31 years to the former Deidra of ABCCONN. Dr. Shelton and has two children, Jordan and Alexandra. Riggs has been Always trying to bring a relevant perspective to the active in ministry Gospel of Jesus Christ, Dr. Riggs values the life for 30 years, changing power of the Word of God, maintaining faithfully serving strong relationships with family and friends, personal three churches, integrity, and accountability. He also likes to see which includes his transformation happen to people and churches. As a current pastorate at pastor, he has seen his role as being God s agent of the First Baptist change towards a preferred future. Church, Lincoln, As a deeply devoted follower of Jesus Christ, loving NE where he has husband, father, Dr. Riggs' over arching aspiration is been serving for to leave a legacy in the Church of Jesus Christ that is the past ten years. relevant and meaningful for the generation that will He has also worked on the denominational level with follow. American Baptist Home Mission Societies of the American Baptist Churches USA, (formally National Life Verse: And I am certain that God, who began the Ministries) where he served as the National Director good work within you, will continue his work until it of Congregational Transformation. Dr. Riggs has also is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus served on the staff of Palmer Seminary as an adjunct returns. Philippians 1:6 professor in the D. Min. program for Congregational Transformation and Renewal. Thanks to the Search Committee and to Rev. Dr. Ken Williams Following the announcement of the retirement of the Judy Allbee, the ABCCONN Personnel Committee got to work. Led by Bonita Grubbs, and with assistance from the Jeff Woods from ABCUSA, they located the Ken Williams and engaged him for a period of 8 months to 18 months. It was uncertain how long the process of finding and calling a new Executive Minister would take. The Personnel Committee also sought out people to form a search committee. They found co chairs Hopeton Scott and JP Morgan, Jennifer Sanborn, Wallace Black, and Joan Burnett. This Search Committee again advised by Jeff Woods began to search. They held listening sessions across the region and attempted to get input from as many people as possible. Our thanks are due to both the Personnel Committee for finding Ken Williams and to the Search Committee which worked long and hard to discern God's will and God's candidate for Executive Minister. At a September 5th Board of Managers meeting the Search Committee presented their candidate and he was ratified unanimously and enthusiastically by the board.

2 Otober / November, 2017 Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ. My name is Harry. I have been serving in ministry for 30 years my experiences have been varied and have allowed me to build a diverse skill set in the areas of pastoral leadership, collaboration, administration, strategic planning, and stewardship. The following are some of my work experiences that required these skills. I began ministry in the American Baptist Churches of the South region in a small family sized church in the little rural town of Spindale, North Carolina. It was there that I was given the opportunity to establish two foundational skills pastoral leadership and stewardship development. Leading with integrity and establishing my own pastoral presence of authentic care I began to establish habits that I would use throughout my ministry. My pastoral presence created trust between me and the people of the New Zion Baptist Church and together we paid off a 25 year bank loan, within the five years I served this church. Next, you may remember that I served in Hamden, Connecticut at the Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church, an ABCCONN church. When I arrived, church attendance was around 150 in Sunday worship. When I left, we had two worship services and attendance had grown. Additionally, a capital campaign was initiated as part of a building renovations project. This project required me to establish new ways of working collaboratively with the church s leadership and because of the growth in program and attendance, I was challenged and became a better administrator and delegator. Actions that were taken as a result of this growth were varied: the creation of teams that would be responsible for different aspects of the growing ministry increasing my interpersonal capacity to interact with all personality types ensuring effective, regular, and clear lines of communication to make sure everyone was in the know oversight of a growing budget, creating functional structures that allowed the work to be carried out without needing me to do it all. Fund raising, both weekly and for the building capital campaign were also skills required of my leadership. My next ministerial call was to ABHMS in Valley Forge at the Mission Center, as director of Congregational Transformation. I was on the front line for ABHMS, managing and operating their congregational transformation efforts. In this work, I was responsible for telling the story of ABHMS s programmatic efforts around congregational transformation. I was responsible for the accounting of the congregational transformation story for New Life I was privileged to work collaboratively with colleagues both in ABHMS and with region leaders and churches. This ministry required me to have an openness, understanding, and ability to reach and connect with a variety of people who were different than myself both theologically and culturally. My next ministerial call was encouraged by the question of a colleague who asked me, Harry, could Lincoln be God s way of increasing your capacity to Love? I had no idea what my saying yes both to my colleague and to First Baptist Church of Lincoln would mean. I could never have guessed that this church would become a place where the nations gather together to worship. Upon my arrival at FBCL, it was a majority culture church and, since I have been here, I have seen it transition to a church where people from around the The American Baptist Churches of Connecticut (ABCCONN) are: Churches in Partnership, Sharing Resources, Inviting and Equipping Disciples

3 world gather to worship and do ministry. Enhancing this global gathering we share our building with three different ethnic congregations, only one of which was there when I arrived. It has been my goal to move the four groups closer together for ministry and how they relate to one another. To do this has required both personal and congregational growth in the area of intercultural understanding and development. What I have learned is that Love is a universal language that can reach across cultural and social norms and boundaries, allowing people to become true sisters and brothers. Working with FBCL and the other three groups (in a consultant/mentor type role) has increased my cross cultural skills as well as my capacity to Love. I believe that these four very different ministries are what God has used to uniquely prepare and qualify me to be the Executive Minister of the ABCCONN region. Healthy Boundaries Workshop A workshop on maintaining healthy pastoral boundaries will be held in West Hatford at the ABCCONN office on Thursday, October 12th from 8:30am to 4:30 pm. The workshop is required of candidates for ordination in CT, and it is strongly recommended that professional church leaders take the workshop again if it's been more than 7 years since they previously took it. The cost for the workshp is $90 or $65 for members of the Ministers Council. RMMO Resources Available Soon Resources for promoting the Retired Ministers and Missionaries Offering will be mailed to congregations soon. Watch for them. The RMMO provides thank you checks to retired ministers and missionaries and reminds them of that they are not forgotten. The theme this year is "Generous Congregations." Advent Devotional Booklets Your Money and Your Ministry Margaret Marcuson, Presenter Is your church facing a budget crisis? Is your salary stagnant (or worse)? Does your church fight about money or keep secrets about it? This presentation will help you learn a way to understand what s really going on (in us and in others) when money becomes an issue in congregational life, and how to lead around money with lowered anxiety and more clarity. What you will take away with you: a new way to approach the money challenges we all face at church. Once again this year, ABCCONN leaders and staff will be writing a booklet of advent devotionals. Copies can be ordered by calling the ABCCONN office at SAVE THE DATE OCTOBER 9 The ABCCONN Office will be closed in observance of Columbus Day. 12 Healthy Boundaries workshop, 8:30 4:30, ABCCONN Offices, West Hartford NOVEMBER 10 Thursday, October 5, :00 am 4:00 pm Sanctuary at Woodville The ABCCONN Office will be closed in observance of the Thanksgiving weekend. 249 Wood Street Woodville, MA Only $25! DECEMBER The ABCCONN Office will close for the week in observance of Christmas This covers all materials for the workshop, a copy of Margaret's book, and a delicious lunch. Sponsored by The Conference of Baptist Ministers in Massachusetts and The Center for Career Development and Ministry. To register,call CCDM at or info@ccdmin.org. The ABCCONN Office will be closed in observance of Veteran's Day JANUARY 1 The ABCCONN Office will be closed in observance of New Year's Day Published by the American Baptist Churches of CT, 90A North Main Street, West Hartford, CT Telephone: FAX: to staff: (first initial last ABCCONN.org (e.g. kwilliams@abcconn.org)

4 Domain Names and Passwords for Your Church Website Earlier this year, I wrote some comments about church websites and things you should know and consider about your church website. I want to follow that up with a little more information. Domain Name Issues Your domain name is the address that people go to in order to view your site, mychurch.org, for example. If you have e mail set up to use your domain name, maintaining your domain name account is even more important. For example, you may have an e mail address of pastor@mychurch.org and secretary@mychurch.org. If your domain name expires, you will quickly find yourself without access to your e mail. Make sure to stay current. If you're not sure of what your domain name account is, or if you're current or not, the public record will tell you. Go to WhoIs.com and type in your church's domain name. Your domain information will come up, including the expiration date on your domain name, the contact name on the account, and the addresses of the nameservers. If your account is not kept current, the nameserver addresses will be switched to a special expired nameserver address and you will neither be able to access your website nor your e mail. The information about your domain name registration should be kept in the office, along with the username and password on the account, so that you can quickly and easily keep it updated. and every time you log in, a code or message is sent to your cell phone, which you must input in addition to the password. What's This Got to Do With My Church's Website You will need a password in order to edit and maintain your site. You will need a password in order to keep your domain name current. You will need a password in order to access Facebook and/or other social media sites. Oh, and you should do your best to not share passwords for sites. That way you can keep track of who is making edits and you can easily block access to someone who is abusing their access. Who Would Hack a Church Site? It's hard to believe that someone would hack a church site, and yet I have experienced a dozen hacked websites which cost time and effort to clean up. And if your church is running a Facebook page or group, your page could easily be defaced with rude comments. If someone gets the password to access your page, this could happen to you. And they could easily block you out of being able to moderate your page, simply by changing the password. Kevin Butler News and Notes A Word About Passwords Prayer Concerns: With so many online accounts it is increasingly difficult to manage passwords. The recent situaton with Equifax illustrates once again the importance of online security and the likelihood of getting hacked. So how do you maintain appropiate security without losing your mind? We continue to keep Rev. Dr. Judy Allbee in our prayers. We mourn the loss of the Rev. Paulette Thompson Clinton who passed away in September after a long bout with breast cancer. We keep her family in our prayers. Please pray for the Rev. Tim Chesser who will undergo bypass surgery in October. Probably the best solution is a password keeper or password manager. Just use Google it will direct you to any number of programs that will keep track of your passwords. Alternatively, develop a scheme for passwords. For example the password 20Mfbibae17{, from the combination of 2017 and the phrase "My favorite breakfast is bacon and eggs" with a "[" thrown in on the end. That type of password will usually pass muster on the sites which require a certain level of security of passwords. Use a memorable phrase and combine it with numbers and/or symbols which mean something to you. Another technique for security, whether it be security of your website or online banking or whatever password protected site you use, is called two factor authentication. Google and gmail, for example, use this. Your online account is linked to your cell phone Transitions: Rev. Nancy Forsstrom, pastor of the Central Baptist Church, Norwich, has resigned, effective November 5, Charlotte Bell has begun as pastor of the Brooklyn Federated Church, in Brooklyn, CT. The Rev. Dr. Ken Williams will be returning North Carolina after September 30th. His address there is: 10 Dubarry Court Durham, NC 27705

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6 Department of Missions & Stewardship October / November, 2017 I am writing this column from the place of Baptist beginnings. Can you guess where that might be? It's the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. A few days ago I visited the place in Amsterdam where the very first English Baptist congregation began meeting in It was in a bakery owned by a Dutch Mennonite. To this day that Amsterdam street is called Bakkersstraat (Baker Street). From those humble beginnings as religious refugees, Baptists grew Bakkerstraat today the site of the first baptist meeting. into a worldwide missionary movement. The fruits of that global movement are evident to me as I have been studying at the International Baptist Theological Study Center, an associated faculty within the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. This Baptist institution is truly international in scope. The faculty hails from Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, England, Estonia, Ireland, the Netherlands, Scotland, and the USA. The students are coming from Armenia, Canada, Croatia, Cuba, the Czech Republic, England, Ghana, Lebanon, Moldova, the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Ukraine and the USA. Each day's seminar is a lesson in the unique international and multi cultural history and mission of Baptists. For centuries we have been investing in Jesus' commission to us to go into all the world. Those of us serving in ABCCONN's Department of Mission and Stewardship work to remind all of us that our unique calling as Christians and Baptists is to be active participants in God's mission in the world. The fields are truly "white unto the harvest," as Jesus said. Our prayers and financial investment as individuals and as churches through United Mission and the World Mission Offering support our superb International Ministries' missionaries as well as ministries closer to home. Together we can do and are doing amazing things in mission that we could never do alone or as individual congregations. Missions Stewardship American Baptist Churches of Connecticut, 90A North Main Street, West Hartford, CT 06107; Telephone: ; Fax: ABCCONN

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