The following interview with Reverend Fred Day was conducted on September 30th, 2004 and was intended to seek out his perspective on his ministry at FUMCOG and why he did not seek re-appointment.

Q: Why did you not seek re-appointment?

Reverend Day: I'm just recognizing as a result of all the change that's gone on now for almost four years that I've been here that I'm tired. It's been a very exciting and unique and wonderful ministry, but it's also been a very, very, very, tiring ministry leading a church through a time of transition and leading a church to build itself on the storied shoulders of an incredible past living into a new present and a new future. I think the decision for me to look for a new appointment come 2005 was one of just recognizing good work that's been done and a wonderful experience in being here, but recognizing that I’m tired, and recognizing that it's not uncommon for churches that have gone through a time of change to have some interim time to need some bridge person, to need some bridge leadership to take it to the next place. And I guess I'm kind of recognizing myself as having provided that kind of ministry.

Q: Did you think you were the interim pastor when you accepted the appointment?

Reverend Day: I think that was one among many thoughts that any pastor would have coming into a situation that followed a long-term excellent relationship with somebody as well beloved and well respected as Ted Loder who served here for those 37 years. So I think anybody coming into a situation like this would recognize that there was certainly the possibility that there would need to be some bridge time, and I did recognize it as a possibility.

Q: And as the facilitators came and listening sessions began, there was a great deal of discussion among all of the congregants about your leadership. But it seemed despite all of the diverse voices in this congregation, they had concluded to reconcile with you and continue your ministry at this church. Is that how you saw it also or did I misperceive something?

Reverend Day: No. I guess I'm talking about my own recognition of the steering committee report as endorsing my ministry and appreciating my gifts, and still recognizing that I was tired. Times have changed and a church's life cycle is arduous and challenging and difficult times full of opportunity and growth and change. And that work is just difficult and not uncommon in churches, but yet one that I'm recognizing has made me weary. And I think it's time for me to look for something fresh and look for something new and look for something that's different, not in any way not deprecating this church and what my time here has meant because it's meant many wonderful things to me and to lots of people, but I think common with any kind of church in the midst of change is to need a bridge person to help to take it to the next place.

Q: In retrospect now I'm hoping that you've had some time to reflect. Why was there so much emphasis on your liturgical style? Why was that the one issue that kept them speaking out against your style of leadership, your sermons, liturgical style, the order of worship?

Reverend Day: I need to be faithful and true to who I am. I have tried, I hope, and believe I've been successful in being accommodating and trying to learn and appreciate what other people's languages and styles and expressions are as well. And I think in many ways we've met in the middle. And in some ways we haven't. But whoever bats a thousand, you know.

And with regard to how I've been received in terms of language and style and liturgy, that transformation has taken place, and you know, it's just been part of the journey through this church changing and growing.

Q: You wrote in one of your sermons some very poignant phrases, which is that, “I confess that I have been ensnared by the despair of some of what's going on in my life and swirls around me. There are tensions of misunderstanding and estrangement.” Could you explain what you meant by “tensions of misunderstanding and estrangement?”

Reverend Day: I'm uncomfortable for this to be any kind of exposé of those kinds of things. I think what I can say best and most earnestly is that the work of leadership through times of change was really taxing, and it was taxing on me both personally and professionally in ways that just made me feel tired and wore me down. And I don’t think it's unique to me as a pastoral leader in a situation like this to have experienced these things. I think that I was at a tired and low place. And that I was not in ways --because of being tired --at my best professional self, able to differentiate between what's personal from what's professional. I think that anybody in a climate of change and transition gets resistance. And dealing with resistance is part of ministry and leadership. There came to be times when in being tired there were things that rested on me more personally than in my best professional self I know that they should. Pastors are really important people and pastoral leaders are really critical to the success and viability of a church.

But success at FUMCOG in this time of change doesn't only rest on who the pastor is and is any kind of referendum on the pastor. It has to do with living through change and developing our life together. It's been a difficult journey living through that change. And there are some things that began to come to rest personally that when I could step aside in my own prayer and in my own time away, and recognize my feeling worn down by some of those things, finally made me say this isn't about you. This is about a church living through change forging its way into the best possible future that it can.

Q: There are some people in this congregation who felt that you were forced to leave the church.

Reverend Day: If I have any opportunity to say that that's not the case, I really want to say that. I don't feel as if I have been forced away in any way, shape or form. I'm just recognizing that I'm weary and I'm recognizing that it's been a difficult and a challenging time as working with the church through a time of change and transition would be, and, you know, that's what it is. No, I don’t feel forced out at all.

Q: And what about you? What would you like to do now?

Reverend Day: What would I like to do now? Wait and hear what the next surprise from the Bishop and the appointment process is going be for me. And trust the guiding of the spirit as to where that will be and what that's going to be like. And again offer what gifts that I have to offer in a spirit of being a servant to do what God has for me to do where I'm going to be sent to do it.

That's what I believe. You know, and I think that the amazing thing that's been happening around here and that's been brewing around here and that has been resurfacing around here is a sense of shared visioning and shared leadership about who we're becoming in the future. And if our time together here has been a time of lifting up that gift and potential, then God's using me well here, and I can really smile and be happy about that.

Q: After all of your trials?

Reverend Day: Oh yeah, but you know what, where does it say that you get to skip the trial. Where does it say in the Bible or whatever other book of life you want to choose, because you've paid your dues, because you've been a good guy, because you've done it this way or because you've done it that way, you know, you get easy street. That's why Job is in the canon of the scripture. It's about that wonderful line in the middle of that book where God out of the whirlwind shouts back to Job who was finally complaining that he's been shat upon, “Has thou entered the treasures of the snow.” I mean, okay, step back for a minute and just enter me a little bit more and maybe the misfortune that you're finding isn't the only thing that's going on in the world. And that's what it is here. Man, there are people in Haiti that don’t have a house right now, there are people in Iraq that are dying of car bombings, and my stuff pales in comparison. And it’s just about being a servant and that doesn’t mean it's easy, but I think, you know, there's some perspective to again recognize that it's not about me, it's more about the church, and the church finding a way to be faithful and catch a vision and move into the future.

Q: So you have no regrets?

Reverend Day: Oh heavens no, heavens no. What I think about four years ago when the Bishop and my friends urged me to come here, I came here hoping and believing that this would be the amazing place that it is purported to be. Since I've been here, I've had a chance to go to South Africa, I have had people come and share the pulpit with me of national and international reputation. I have been stretched in terms of my abilities in praying and preaching to consider other language styles and other forms of expression that I might not have ever considered. And I’m sure that the church has received gifts from me as well. So it’s really been kind of a mutual sort of thing.

Biography

Bishop Weaver Interview upon appointing Rev. Day

Essay on Pastoral Change (by Prof. Carroll, Duke University Divinity School)

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