 Greetings, friends. Welcome to CTUCC Conference Cast for May 15, 2014, the regular podcast of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. Whoever you are and wherever you may be on life's journey at this very moment, you are welcome here. We begin this week's conference cast with this meditation from Tim and Ann Hughes, co-directors of Silver Lake Conference Center. The text isn't from Scripture and it isn't really a text. It's this song. There's a road where you can walk and almost touch the sky Where you can let the troubles of your life pass you by When Bob Smith and I wrote this song, we were hoping to evoke the feeling one gets coming to Silver Lake Conference Center. The name came from a phrase that Alden Tyrell used to say every week when the new group of young people had just arrived. Since he said the same thing every week, every year, those of us who had heard it a million times began saying it along with him for fun. Alden would good-naturedly say, while you're here this week, we ask that you stay within the boundaries of Silver Lake. Those are low road and everybody would chime in with the road you came in on. After you heard it once, you would simply chime in and instantly become part of the in-crowd. When we were writing the song, we realized that it was more than a boundary. It was a metaphor for the path that brought you to Silver Lake. The way so many of us began our faith journey or heard our life's calling. One of the things Alden tried his best to ingrain in all of us is that here at Silver Lake, everyone is invited to be part of the in-crowd because there isn't supposed to be an out-crowd. Everyone is to feel welcomed and feel encouraged to be themselves and feel accepted while they are here. And it is everyone's job to make it so. That makes Silver Lake a great place to figure out who you are, who God is in your life, and who your neighbor is. Many make friendships that are deep and lifelong. Whoever you are and wherever you are in life's journey, you are welcome here. Over the 57 years since Silver Lake became the outdoor ministry site for the Connecticut Conference of the UCC, literally tens of thousands of our UCC people, young and once young, have had this amazing experience of radical welcome. This is what we tried to capture in the song. I'll let you decide if we captured it or not, but the most important thing is that you, yes you, the person listening to this right now, go out and invite the young people you know, or those that you meet, to come to Silver Lake so that they too may have the chance to feel this belonging. This is too important and too available to our young people for anyone to miss out because they never got asked to try this outdoor ministry and take the plunge. Sometimes we all need a little push or some encouragement to try a new thing. We're asking that you be that little push or encouragement to a parent or a young person and potentially change a life. Here's a prayer for this week. Dear God, we ask that you bless all those who go off to camp. Help them make new friends and be themselves. Help them find renewal and spiritual nourishment and help them reconnect with fun and hope as they joyfully accept your blessed invitation to revel in the outdoors of your sacred creation. Help them and all your children fall in love with your earth, your presence, and your community, wherever two or more are gathered in your name. Bless your leaders, your counselors, your staff, and all the families who prepare for the seasonal ritual of going to camp. May we all meet you there. Amen. Across the United Church of Christ, we continue to lift up the hundreds of Nigerian girls being held by the Boko Haram militants in our prayers. May they come home safe, sound, and soon. In the news this week, at the end of April, Julius Lester's book Day of Tears received a dramatic reading in Amistad Hall at First Church of Christ Congregational UCC in Farmington. Twelve readers offered the stories of 400 captive Africans who were abruptly torn from their families when a plantation owner in Savannah, Georgia sold 400 slaves in what turned out to be the biggest auction of human beings in American history. One character, Will, described the pain of seeing his sister sold away from him as like lightning through the chest. Amidst the anguish of the slaves, the callousness and unconcern of the white master and auctioneer, chill the spirit. The reading was the work of the church's Amistad Task Force, charged by the congregation to reawaken them with the spirit that energized their forebears who housed the mendicaptives from the schooner Amistad as they pursued their legal struggle for freedom. As Senior Minister the Rev. Stephen Saviti's put it, they are to keep the story alive. Over 20 of us have just returned from the very first clergy camp at Silver Lake, which allowed pastors to enjoy the experience of being a conferee again at our outdoor ministry center in Sharon. We took canoes out on the lake, climbed trees to light it in the meals, we sang at a campfire, and of course, we prayed together. We'll have more about that on next week's conference cast and in a new vantage point. But for now, remember that we've got open spaces for young people this summer, and we want them to come to this place where they can truly be themselves. Visit the new section of our website for a profile of the Rev. Frank Newsom, Senior Pastor of the first congregational church UCC in Norwalk, and a tribute to the life and ministry of the late Rev. Dwight Dutton. You'll find all the current headlines at ctucc.org slash news. We're delighted to welcome Conference Archivist John Van Epps to the studio today for a roots of our tradition, Touchstones with History. May 27th marks the 450th anniversary of the death of John Calvin, the great Protestant reformer. No, he never lived here, but his influence has been great in our churches. Calvin is the head of our reformed heritage, shared by Presbyterians and our United Church of Christ. Regarding worship, Calvin only allowed that which was provided for in Scripture. Therefore there were no organs, no set liturgy, and no elaborate garb for ministers. The focus was the proclamation of the word. Early congregational singing was the lining out of the psalms. Later there was accompaniment by a stringed instrument such as a bass fiddle or even a violin. Organs did not become accepted for use in our kind of churches until the mid-1800s. John Calvin advocated a weekly communion which was the practice in some congregational churches in the early years in our country. Weddings and funerals were considered to be civil matters and in the first hundred years or so weren't even held in churches or even officiated by the clergy. Calvin advocated a holy commonwealth with a close relation and cooperation of church and state. So the Puritans came to New England to establish the one true pure church to practice their freedom of religion and to force everyone else to do the same. We were the only recognized church in Connecticut and indeed any new congregational church required the approval of the legislature. In the time of Jonathan Edwards there were changes that split our churches and associations. There was the rise of the Enlightenment and a more rational Christianity with an emphasis on free will. Ironically these became known as the Old Lights. The followers of Calvin and Jonathan Edwards emphasized conversion. This resulted in the great awakening of the 1740s. These advocates became known as the New Lights, the New Divinity and New England Theology. But changes in our Calvinist heritage continued. Yale was prone to Enlightenment thinking in the latter 1700s until the coming of Timothy Dwight, a prominent New Light theologian around 1800. Later Nathaniel Taylor became the leading theologian at Yale with his view of Calvinism with a greater role for human freedom, free will. This became known as the New Haven Theology and did not go over well. Some felt Calvinism was in danger of being swept away. They formed a theological institute in East Windsor in 1833, what eventually became Hartford Seminary. Its first president was Bennett Tyler. So for 25 years there was the Taylor-Tiler controversy in our churches. Both Lyman Beecher and Horace Bushnell faced heresy trials for their departure from strict Calvinism. Congregationalists from around the country gathered in Boston in 1865 and produced the Burial Hill Declaration considered by some to be the last stand of New England Calvinism. We've come a long way from John Calvin in the 1500s, but the spirit of John Calvin lives on as we do worship decently and in order. Learn about nurturing a healthy endowment for a local church at one of two workshops, one tonight in Suffield, or again on May 21 in Bristol. On May 17 in Clinton we're offering creating a season of generosity, moving stewardship from blah to transformational. And join us on the evening of May 17 at the fourth annual Youth Revival to be held at Dixwell Avenue UCC in New Haven. That pushes my buttons is a workshop on handling difficult behavior in ministry. That will be May 28 in East Hampton, Massachusetts. The Connecticut Conference Choir, which includes you or anyone else who'd like to come and sing, will enjoy a musical retreat at Silver Lake May 30 and 31. You can learn about environmental hazards, keeping our churches and homes safe on May 31 in Deep River. An online book discussion about children's ministry in the way of Jesus begins on June 2. And golfers, go get your clubs ready for the eighth annual Silver Lake Golf Tournament on June 3 in Waterbury. You can always learn more about what's coming up in the Connecticut Conference by visiting us at ctucc.org slash events. We conclude today with this spirited Wednesday prayer from the Reverend Sarah Jane Munchauer, a frequent interim pastor in this conference. She notes the way some stones have hard edges and fit together well, while others have no corners worn by wind and water over time. May God grant us stones, the grace, she says, to be smoothed by the stuff of life and to enjoy the peculiar nature of our calling in Christ. And that brings this conference cast to a close. Thanks to Tim and Ann Hughes for their reflection and to GarageBand for our music. Primary funding for conference cast comes from your congregation's gifts to our church's wider mission basic support, changing lives to the United Church of Christ. Eric Anderson, the Minister of Communications and Technology for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, praying that your days this week may be filled with the presence, the guidance, and the grace of God.