Regional News

On December 6th, the Region and the Northeast Area celebrated the ministries of Lori Richcreek, Administrative Assistant, and Rev. Leslie Dotson, Associate Regional Minister.

Below are photos and some of the words that were shared that day.

Lori, In February of 2013, Rev. Leslie Dotson invited Lori to serve as the Northeast Area Administrative Assistant. On behalf of the Region, it has been an honor to have you, Lori, serving the Regional Church and the Northeast Area for almost six years. We have experienced your gifts of serving with joy and prayer, and we know you, in turn, have received many blessings in this ministry we do together. We have appreciated your leadership with the Northeast Area Council and the Newsletter and most especially the leadership you have given the women’s ministry. And, on behalf of the Regional staff, we thank you for your hospitality and your grace and your deep and abiding spirituality and all that you have offered to us. We thank you for engaging in God’s “body-building” work.

Leslie, you have served the Regional Church as an Associate Regional Minister for ten years. We are grateful for your years of service as a servant leader for pastors and for congregations all over the Region, but particularly with those in the Northeast and Southeast Areas. Who are grateful for your pastoral presence, your preaching, your teaching, your coaching, your guidance, your prayers, your compassion for all of God’s people, which naturally reflects your passion for social justice. Over the years, you have represented and advocated for diversity. You have provided leadership for the women, for pastors in the Commissioned Minister’s Training Program, Leadership Training School, Regional Assemblies. For Pro-Reconciliation Anti-Racism, for Healthy Boundaries. Most important is your deep and abiding care and prayer that you are so disciplined about and your quiet and unassuming writing each and every person you pray for to let them know how much God cares. We are grateful for the peace and grace of God that goes with you in every situation around the Region! We honor and celebrate your ministry and will surely miss all that you have shared as a minister to the Regional Church.

On behalf of the Regional staff, thank you for that divine peace and grace that lives within you, as well your love, your deep and abiding spirit that has been reflected in your leadership in Oklahoma.

Thank you to all of you here today to honor and celebrate Lori and Leslie’s ministries. We especially give thanks to our Regional Moderator, Tom Stanley, and the NEA Moderator, Kevin Howe, for making all the arrangements for this reception today, and thank you to Phillips for offering their hospitality of hosting this blessed occasion.

The blessing today is an adaptation from Maya Angelou’s poem, “Amazing Peace,” Celebrations:  Rituals of Peace and Prayer, New York:  Random House, Inc., 2006.

Our [prayer] for you

Is that you continue

To be who and how you are

To astonish a mean world

With your acts of kindness

To allow humor to lighten the burden

Of your tender hearts

In a society dark with cruelty

To let the people [see and] hear the grandeur

Of God in your [presence and prayers]

To let your eloquence

Elevate the people to heights

They had only imagined

To remind the people that

Each is as good as the other

And that no one is beneath

Nor above you

To remember your own young years

And look with favor upon the lost

And the least and the lonely

To put the mantel of your protection

Around the bodies of

The young and defenseless

To take the hand of the despised

And diseased and walk proudly with them

In the high street

Some might see you and

Be encouraged to do likewise . . .

. . . To let gratitude be the pillow

Upon which you kneel to

Say your nightly prayer

And let faith be the bridge

You build to overcome evil

And welcome good

To ignore no vision

Which comes to enlarge your range

And increase your spirit

To dare to love deeply

And risk everything

For the good thing . . .

And by doing so

You and your ministry

Will be able to continue

Eternally

May God’s blessing continue to be upon you, Lori,

and Leslie

and all of us

as we go from this place

to share the love and peace and grace of God.

So be it.  Amen.