Matthew Emery

Lead Minister

• serving as primary preacher, worship planner and leader, and pastoral care provider;
• creating and leading multiple short-term-series format adult faith formation offerings, including Bible 101, Lesser Evils, Learning to Pray, and “The Path” (a 25-session narrative journey through the whole of the Bible);
• teaching a weekly lectionary Bible study group;
• consulting regularly with the children’s-and-youth ministry leader on children’s church happenings, the offering of “Early Word” children’s moments in worship, and occasional intergenerationally-aimed worship services;
• instituting new practices around newcomer welcome and follow-up;
• supporting the congregation’s ongoing Intercultural Ministry initiative through consultation with the Intercultural Ministry Coordinator and Intercultural Ministry committee, participation in Intercultural Ministry sponsored events, programmatic leadership with two Intercultural Ministry retreats, and growing the incorporation of materials in worship services in the language(s) representative of our Intercultural Ministry participant constituencies (primarily Korean);
• facilitating the welcoming of a new affiliated prayer, study, and fellowship group into the life of our congregation in response to the inquiry of a newcomer wishing to bring the community of Kinyarwanda-speaking immigrants he has been pastoring into connection with our congregation;
• envisioning and planning a pathway from the congregation’s COVID-pandemic online-only worship operations to the resumption of in-person services in a hybrid format retaining the ability to have integral online attendee (and, occasionally, even remote leader/speaker) capabilities, which included the design and oversight of initial operations of the congregation’s current livestream-capable audio-video setup and in-sanctuary display systems;
• guiding a shift in the focus on of the Church Council away from detailed ministry and operations management to a greater emphasis on bigger-picture vision and discernment matters through working with Council leadership to shift meeting formats, preparing and leading learning-and-discussion segments for meetings, and creating an environment of competency, permission-giving, and flexibility for the minister, staff, and volunteers to actualize ministry plans and operations on their own;
• closely collaborating with our Treasurer, Church Council, and Trustees on matters of finance, budgeting, and institutional funds management;
• closely collaborating with the Ministry & Personnel chair on multiple staff search and hiring processes, including for the director of music, the children’s-and-youth ministry leader, the intercultural ministry coordinator, and office administrator;
• providing key operations continuity through multiple turnovers and periods of vacancy in the Office Administrator position during the first two years of my tenure;
• shepherding the process leading to the creation of a half-time associate minister position to be filled by a candidate for ordination in need of a Supervised Ministry Education appointment, largely made possible through grant funding made available by another Community of Faith in our regional council;
• starting our periodic presence via a booth at Cloverdale Market Days (the summertime monthly artisan market and community fair near our church), with the booth providing an interactive craft activity aimed at younger persons along with a visible presence about our congregation in a highly-trafficked wider community event;
• periodically participating with the ministry team shared with a neighbouring United Church congregation that serves monthly at the Cloverdale Community Kitchen’s community dinner program, a new ministry team formed during my tenure;
• improving the congregation’s internal and external communications, including a re-imagining of the weekly eNews shortly after the beginning of my tenure, solidifying and emphasizing consistent branding identity, improving interior signage, further development of our website and social media, and initiating work toward an online church management system (Realm) that provides both church office management and congregant communications hub capabilities;
• actively working with our Refugee Support Ministry Team as we navigated an extremely difficult first-year sponsorship period;
• prompting the creation of a series of events and a small capital campaign of building renewal projects to celebrate the multiple co-occurring anniversaries we had in 2025 (75 years for our building, 100 years for The United Church and for our United congregation, and 150 years from the founding of our predecessor Presbyterian and Methodist congregations), and supporting lay leader teams as they carried out these celebrations; and
• shepherding the process of exploration, negotiation, and regional council approvals preparation in response to a developer’s inquiry about purchasing a surplus green-space portion of our property (a sale that eventually fell through due to developer withdrawal), and supported Council leaders as they subsequently engaged a realtor to pursue a sale of said property and ushered that sale through the regional council approvals process (as of this writing, that sale is still pending with an accepted offer that awaits development proposal approval to achieve consummation); my own contribution to both of these processes included significant work on drafting the Community of Faith ministry plan and other supporting documentation.

2011 – 2021

Senior Minister

• serving as primary preacher and worship planner;
• bringing the standard-of-excellence in worship into alignment with the church’s historic and current prominence in a university context, while also encouraging the incorporation of new and diverse gifts of music and arts;
• fostering renewed creative collaboration between pastoral staff and professionally-led music ministries;
• shepherding the congregation and its leadership into a sustained period of relational health and staff stability following an era of conflict, toxic behavior, and frequent staff turn-over;
• catalyzing and actively guiding the education, exploration, and planning efforts to discern and implement completely new governance and ministry-leadership structures for the congregation;
• guiding and resourcing discernment and planning processes around staffing structure in 2011 and in 2020;
• implementing vibrant and well-received online forms of worship and other ministries during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and guiding efforts to make further long-term investment in infrastructure and plans for vital digital ministry into the future;
• integrating spiritual reflection and leadership development elements into the regular meeting patterns of the congregation’s leadership bodies;
• leading (together with associate pastor) a high-engagement series on issues of white privilege and racial justice;
• creating and leading a variety of short-term adult faith formation series, with topics including Bible 101, Holy Communion / Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, Reformation and United Church of Christ history, spiritual gifts discovery, and Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship;
• teaching a weekly lectionary bible study group on a regular basis;
• fostering new cooperative relationships with neighboring Episcopal and Roman Catholic congregations, including periodic shared worship and programming;
• contributing leadership to area interfaith groups and initiatives;
• maintaining a visible presence in the university campus community, especially through relationship and participation with the UConn Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the UConn Rainbow Center (LGBTQ+ cultural center), and other offices within student services and residence life;
• supporting lay leaders as they guided the church through discernment leading to the congregation’s declaring itself a Just Peace Church, and as they engaged area efforts in refugee resettlement;
• redeveloping the church’s website and communications-branding collateral, and contributing significantly to ongoing graphic design, communications, and promotion work;
• serving as primary staff support to annual stewardship commitment campaigns, and introducing a variety of new techniques in those campaigns;
• contributing actively to annual budgeting processes and ongoing fiscal oversight, involving annual budgets of over $400,000 and overall assets totaling over $1.9 million (as of the end of 2019, exclusive of property).

Associate Pastor

• frequent preaching and weekly worship leadership;
• significant liturgical planning, serving as the lead worship planner for all special/festival services (Holy Week, Easter, Christmas Eve, 160^th Anniversary celebrations, etc.);
• helping facilitate, together with senior pastor, significant visioning and vitality work with the Church Council;
• creating, and writing for, a weekly congregation-wide scripture study faith formation email;
• staffing stewardship ministry team and facilitating changes to stewardship ministry methods;
• organizing and leading new member classes;
• redeveloping the congregation’s website;
• assisting with pastoral visitation;
• leading high school youth ministry, including revitalizing upon my arrival, adding annual summer mission trips, facilitating a comprehensive youth ministry assessment by outside consultants, and ongoing relationships and pastoral care with our active youth.

Pastoral Intern

Chaplain Intern

Intern