Moderator's Message
July 20, 2022
Dear First Church members and Friends,
It is with great joy that we present our new designated term pastor, Brigitta Remole. She is a well-seasoned pastor of UCC churches in New England and Washington state, serving as both a settled pastor and an intentional interim for the past 30 years. Fortunately for us, she moved to Portland last year to live closer to her daughter and granddaughter.
She holds a B.A. from Carleton College, a Masters in Social Work from NYU, and a Masters of Divinity from Yale Divinity School. Some of her areas in continuing education include: The Large Congregation, Intergenerational Faith Formation, Mediation, Multiple Staff Temperament, Church Conflict, and Church Size Transitions. She has worked with a partnership between the Connecticut Conference and Habitat for Humanity to build houses. She has been an active participant in Conference activities, serving on the Committee on Ministry in Connecticut and the Pacific Northwest Conference, as well as other leadership positions. She has been active in programs for Marriage Equality, Gun Responsibility, Racial Justice and Gay Pride.
She characterizes herself as kind, curious and collaborative, emotionally secure and accepting of people from different backgrounds. She believes in the transformative power of covenant, which to her means mutuality, accountability, and interdependence. The church is about relationships, and the good news is that the church is the place where relationships cultivated in love can happen.
As part of her responsibility as a Designated Term pastor, together with us, she must set goals that we all can evaluate at the end of her 6-month term. At Council last night she shared the following goals:
Rebuild trust- of ourselves and of each other so that people can share honestly in many different settings and groups
Facilitate the congregation in the practice of living into what it is “for”- keeping the main thing we are about the main thing we are focused on. How do we live into being the people of God?
Assist the congregation in rediscovering its heart: identify its gifts and its voice. What then shall we do as the people of God?
She considers these goals to be fluid and flexible. She wants to get to know us and invites us into the process of refining the goals and living into them with her.
Thanks be to God for the arrival of our new pastor!
Paris Hancock, Vice Moderator
Margaret Baldwin, Past Moderator
Phil Oliver, Moderator from afar
The Council voted unanimously to accept her job description and compensation package. While her contract is named a “call agreement,” it is not the same as the call agreement offered to a settled pastor, whose ministry is affirmed by a vote of the congregation, after an extensive search process. In this case, our conference minister, Tyler Connoley, advised us to use the term “Designated Pastor” to describe Brigitta’s shorter term role as our pastor in our unique circumstance.