46th ANNUAL NEAUCE CONFERENCE              

    

                Then Peter began to speak to them,'"Truly, I understand that God shows no partiality."    Acts 10:34

 

 

May 2-4, 2017

                                                                                                                    Pilgrim Pines Conference Center
                                                                              220 West Shore Road
                                                                               Swanzey, NH  03446

Click here to see the brochure (including a list of workshops and conference schedule)

Register Now! 

        Racial Justice Keynote Address (Tuesday):  The Rev. DaVita McCallister          Associate Conference Minister for Leadership and Vitality, Connecticut Conference UCC

 

The Rev. Da Vita "Day" McCallister is a mother, ordained minister, entrepreneur, philanthropist, writer and advocate for youth and young adults. She has shared her love, passion, and wisdom in youth and young adult ministries for over 25 years, in a number of settings including the Fund for Theological Education, the National Setting of the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church.  She takes great pride in her Christian heritage as the great-grand daughter of the late Rev. Jesse B. Baldwin, a Baptist minister and pastor of over 65 years in rural Florida.

Most recently, Day staffs the Racial Justice Ministry of the Connecticut Conference, and is one of the five authors of the newly-released White Privilege curriculum.

 

                   Interfaith Keynote Address (Wednesday):  Dr. Heidi Hadsell               President, Hartford Seminary

Heidi Hadsell, Ph.D., is President of Hartford Seminary and Professor of Social Ethics. She has a deep commitment to interfaith dialogue and engagement, believing that in today’s religiously plural world, it is essential to understand and work with religions beyond one’s own.

Dr. Hadsell serves on a variety of boards that reflect her service in the community and experience in theological education. The boards include Arigatou International, where she is on the council for the World Day of Prayer and Action for Children; Globethics.net; the Advisory Committee to the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion; the Association of Theological Schools in North America and Canada, including the ATS Presidential Leadership Education Advisory Committee; and Plowshares Institute.

Dr. Hadsell’s international experience is reflected in her membership on the International Resource Panel for the Islamic Council of Singapore (MUIS). She recently was named to the Abrahamic Forum Steering Committee of the International Council of Christians and Jews.

Before she came to Hartford Seminary in 2000, Dr. Hadsell served as Director of the Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches, Bossey, Switzerland.

She taught at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil, before joining the faculty of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, as Assistant Professor of Social Ethics in 1989. At McCormick, she became Dean in 1993 and Professor of Social Ethics in 1994.

She has published on a variety of subjects, including ecumenism, environmental ethics, religion in Brazil, and ethics in a religiously plural world. She is co-editor of “Changing the Way Seminaries Teach: Pedagogies for Interfaith Dialogue” and of “Beyond Idealism,” which includes her article on “Ecumenical Social Ethics Now.”

 

           Faith Formation Keynote Address (Thursday):  Dr. Courtney Goto                  Assistant Professor of Religious Education and co-Director of the Center for Practical Theology    Boston University

 

Courtney T. Goto is an Assistant Professor of Religious Education and a co-Director of the Center for Practical Theology. Her research interests include aesthetic teaching and learning; imagination, creativity, and embodied knowing in adult religious education; and intersections of power, privilege, and culture in practical theology. Her most recent book is The Grace of Playing: Pedagogies for Leaning into God’s New Creation (2016). Her current book (in progress) is a moral project on dynamics of power and oppression in discourse, research, and teaching in practical theology. Goto is a third generation Japanese American United Methodist.

Worship Leader:  The Rev. Matt Emery
Senior Minister, Storrs Congregational Church - Storrs, CT

“Pastor Matt” began serving Storrs Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, as senior minister at the beginning of 2011.  Prior to that, he served nearly four-and-a-half years as the associate pastor of a United Church of Christ congregation in Rockford, Illinois, and has also served on the staff of a UCC congregation in the metro-Washington-DC area (Arlington, VA).

Pastor Matt has been very active in wider settings of the United Church of Christ.  Having previously served on the committee on ministry and a conference minister search committee when he was in Illinois, he currently chairs the Nominating Committee for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ.  He has previously been active with the UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns, including as lead worship planner and coordinator for their 2007 National Gathering, and is now a member of the inaugural class of the Next Generation Leadership Initiative: Target 2030, an initiative coordinated through the United Church Board for Ministerial Assistance (a subsidiary of our Pension Boards), that seeks out our denomination’s most-promising younger clergy for a multi-year intensive program of leadership development and education as an investment in the long-term health and vitality of the local congregations of the United Church of Christ.

A native of central lower Michigan, Matt is a graduate of the Chicago Theological Seminary(M.Div., 2006) and of Michigan State University(B.S., Computer Science, 2002).  He has also completed continuing education at Princeton Theological Seminary (fellow of the Engle Institute of Preaching, 2013 & 2014; Certificate in Youth and Theology, 2009; Forums on Youth Ministry, 2007-9) among other places.  Matt and his partner Adam Yates, an Episcopal priest serving in East Haddam, recently took up residence in a 300-year-old house in Andover where they live with Demon, their cat, and Daniel, their beagle puppy.

                                     Music Leader:  The Rev. Greg Gray                                                       Senior Pastor, South Congregational Church - East Hartford, CT

Greg is currently serving as Senior Pastor of South Congregational Church in East Hartford, CT.  Prior to that, he was Minister of Music and Worship at the Congregational Church of Grafton in Grafton, MA. and Music Director of Asbury United Methodist Church in Warwick, RI.  He is a graduate of Candler School of Theology (M.Div., 2014) and Boston University School of Theology (Master of Sacred Theology - Liturgy and Music, 2015).

Register Now! To hold your spot, payment is due 30 days after registering. 

In addition, a late fee of $30 will be assessed if registering after April 1, 2017.