New Senior Pastor Appointed to BUMC, April 18,2010

    Most of you know that both Larry and Bob will be moving on to new
appointments at the end of June. We have been waiting to hear from the
conference about who will be appointed to replace Larry as senior pastor.
I'm happy to tell you that the conference has now made that appointment, and
they are sending us a real star -- the Rev. We Hyun Chang, of First United
Methodist Church in Manchester, N.H. The SPRC is very excited about him, and
once you hear more, I think you will be, too!

    Rev. Chang was born in Seoul, Korea in 1966. He came to Boston
University's School of Theology in the summer of 1993 after graduating from
the Korean Methodist Seminary and serving in the Korean Army for 27 months.
He earned his M.Div. from BU and was ordained in the New England Conference
in 1996. Since then, he has served churches in Chicopee, Mass. and Concord,
N.H., before his current appointment in Manchester. He is currently the chair of the
conference's Church and Society Committee, and the conference Immigration Task
Force. He also has served on the Board of Ordained Ministry with Larry.

    We is married to the Rev. Yoo-Yun Cho-Chang, whom he met while they were
both at  BU. Yoo-Yun is a Methodist elder, and has served churches in North
Adams, Mass. and various communities in N.H. both as an interim pastor and
as part of a team ministry. She is serving on the Board of Ordained Ministry
with Larry this year. Yoo-Yun is also currently a candidate for a Ph.D. in
religion and counseling psychology at Boston University.

    They have one daughter -- Hope Hee Chang ­ who just turned 12, and is
currently in 6th grade.  Her dad tells us she loves to read, text, ride
horses, play piano, but she loves to play with her friends most and best!
The Chang family also has a dog ­ a Lhasa Apso named Pooch, who We says
"loves to do nothing and to sit under our dinner table waiting for the
crumbs!"

    The SPRC met with We on Wednesday, and I think it's fair to say we were
all grinning from ear to ear after speaking with him. He is smart,
passionate about Christian ministry, and deeply committed to social justice.
He has a lot of energy, and struck me as a deeply thoughtful and searching
man, who is eager to help us "dig deeper," as he put it, on our spiritual
journey, while we find new ways to serve the world.

    Many of you know that every year, SPRC prepares a profile of the
church's mission and ministry for the conference to use if it decides to
change our pastoral appointment. Rev. Chang had, of course, read this before
our meeting, and singled out three things we had said about ourselves that
were attractive to him. The first was that we described ourselves as "a
thoughtful people who want to know more"; the second was that we are a
church that "seeks others to join us in doing justice, loving kindness and
walking humbly with God." The third statement he mentioned is that we are "a
people who take life seriously but try not to take ourselves too seriously."
It meant a lot, to me at least, that he found those statements meaningful,
because those words are Larry's. It gave me confidence that the Rev. Chang
will be able to build on who we have become in these wonderful years we have
had with Larry. Joel Grimm mentioned in that meeting that Larry had helped
us "find our center," and I think We will help us hold that center while
reaching outward in new directions.

    So, in this season of great change, the pieces are beginning to fall
into place. As I mentioned last week, we have hired a new organist, who
starts June 27, and will be visiting us before then. Bob's position will be
filled later this year, after the Rev. Chang comes on board. And I want to
promise you that Barbara isn't going anywhere ­ she'll be continuing her
wonderful work doing group development, member support and the thousand
other things that we never see but keep our community connected and
spiritually fed.

    If you want to know more about Rev. Chang's ministry, check out his
current church's website at <http://www.fumcmanchester.org> . And, as always,
all the members of SPRC are happy to talk with you about this new development.

    Please hold the Chang family in your prayers as they prepare to make
this move. I know we will welcome them to our community with open hearts and
minds. I hope we also can keep his current congregation in our prayers ­
they are hearing this news this morning and it is likely to be as big a
shock as we felt when Larry announced his new appointment a few weeks ago.

    In the short-term, our job remains the same ­ to enjoy these last few
months with Larry and Bob and find ways to celebrate their ministry with us.
Let us also keep them in our prayers as they prepare for the next stage of
their ministry. The next time I walk up to the pulpit, it will be with
details of an official send-off for Larry and Bob. The SPRC promised you the
"Mother-of-All Going-Away Celebrations," and we mean it! If you have any
ideas for that, please feel free to share them.

Peace,

Linda Kincaid
for the Staff-Parish Relations Committee