University of Virginia Library

Summary

We have examined the process whereby a reality came to be defined by those who operated within it. The pastor brought with him an idea of what he hoped the Congregation would become. His particular set of skills and perspectives helped to shape the incipient congregation. His choice to play a low-key pastoral

leadership role encouraged lay leadership development but at the same time contributed, by default, to the internal tensions which retarded the process of self-definition.

Passive resistance of local Presbyterian clergymen to the early organizational efforts of Mr. Righter severely hampered the recruitment of active churchpeople to the Congregation. Attracted by early media attention and the prompt movement to direct social action, those who gathered to form the charter group were a mixture of active churchgoers, disillusioned church dropouts, and secular humanists. The diversity of this group made the development of consensus on self-definition tedious and difficult. Consequently the Congregation was not formally organized for a year and a half after its first meeting in October of 1968, and then only by virtue of becoming a union church supported jointly by the Presbyterians and the less restrictive United Church of Christ.

The statement of mission finally agreed upon by the members was in sharp contrast with the goals of the Presbytery in the design for the experimental congregation. Whereas the Presbytery expressed a clear desire for the initiation of cooperative programs and the service of the mission as a training ground for other interested lay persons, this received only fleeting mention in the Congregation's statement of mission. As a matter of policy and practice, this goal had died in print.