The Spirit: Special Edition Rev. David Clifford Installation at First Christian Church
Family of God
By Rev. David Clifford
I’d like to share a funny conversation I had with my wife while I was in the midst of planning the installation service. There were a number of important symbolic things I wanted to make sure we did as part of the service. At one point in my discussions with Onnastasia I asked if she thought I was going over the top with all the planning. She responded, “Of course, but I would expect nothing else from you.” One of the nice things about planning the installation service so far into my time as your minister is that the honeymoon phase between pastor and congregation is over. While I still don’t know the entire church as well as I would like due to COVID. I do know our congregation fairly well. We have already done amazing work together; and we have already had our disagreements and survived them with the love and unity of Christ. This means we were able to plan a much more meaningful service for the church God is calling First Christian in Henderson to be.
There are a number of things about me that I hope the installation service was able to represent. The first is the importance of my past and family. I am extremely excited to be in Henderson, Kentucky because this is home for Onnastasia and I. Our families are here (or close by) and our kids are able to see cousins and grandparents in a way that I thought was impossible for a minister’s family. Family is also important at First Christian. It is one of the things that initially attracted me about this congregation. In fact, my first couple of years here was a hilarious compilation of me learning of familiar connections that I would never have guessed. “They’re sisters! I never would have thought that.”
I cannot express to you all how important my time growing up at Sebree Christian Church meant to my faith development. I tell folks often that I’m not sure I would be in ministry today if it weren’t for the love and support of those people and if it weren’t for the openness of our denomination. Many may not know this fact, but my father was Southern Baptist and my mother’s family is United Methodist. When they had children, they could not agree on which church to go to. My mother thought Baptists had too many rules and my father could not imagine his children being baptized as infants (although we were). The compromise was to attend the Christian Church in Morganfield, which happened to be Disciples of Christ. When we moved to Sebree, following my father’s death, we found a loving and caring group of fellow Disciples to continue growing in our faith with.
The deep history of our faith family is extremely important. It is here that we will find the calling God has on our lives. We can look back through the history of our faith tradition in the scriptures and we can look to those that have come before us in passing the faith that we have now to us. This congregation has a rich history of faithful saints. This statement is true throughout the history of our church, but it is also true right now. God’s faithful make up First Christian Church. You are a part of this rich history and we have a story to tell. It’s true that we might be a little over the top in many of the things we do, but I wouldn’t expect anything else from the Body of Christ.
I look forward to the ways in which we will continue to tell our story together,
A Life Lived for God
By Barbara Kammerlohr
David agreed to talk with me about this as I searched for a way to include in the Spirit examples of how his life now must differ from the lives of those not set aside, or how his own life is now different in some way”. The answers to my questions were not what I had expected and it took a day or two to process them. But they did offer clues to the nature of the person who is now the spiritual leader of FCCH.
“My ordination (and installation) are expansions of my faith. The expansion includes the church community. I have the advantage of having my calling connected to all of the church and its leaders—even those from the past who grew the church into what it is today.
“Practically speaking, I am thankful for the life I have today. My vocation gives me the freedom in my schedule that most people with a 9 to 5 schedule do not have. It allows me to be more involved in my family’s life: school activities, various appointments, etc. Understanding the needs of my family helps me become a better pastor. As I learn to be a better dad, I find ways to use those lessons in my ministry.”
David also expressed doubts that the rites associated with Installation and Ordination changed anything about his life. “There is a part of me”, he said, “that cannot imagine being anything other than a minister. I have been thinking about ministry since high school and knew around my 16th birthday that I wanted to go into the ministry.”
And David’s mother, Peggy Clifford, echoed the same message. “God has had a hand”, she said, “in everything David has done.” She illustrated her point with a vignette from his childhood.
The extended family was gathering at the house to celebrate a special occasion. Two cousins arrived ready to play but could not find four-year-old David. One finally opened the door of a room where he found David and convinced him to come out to play. “What were you doing?” his mother asked. “Well, I was talking to God,” came back the answer. The gathered adults could do nothing but keep silence.
Then came time to apply for admission to college and the inevitable advice to apply to several just in case “you do not get your first choice”. It did not help Peggy’s level of concern for him when her son only applied to one university. Still today she is convinced that God had his hand in the situation. David was not only admitted to his first choice (Transylvania) but the admission came with enough scholarship money that finances were not an issue during those four years.
So, what can readers of the Spirit take away from these vignettes? It occurred to me that God’s intervention in the affairs of the world is frequently so quiet that they pass unnoticed. Perhaps it will take time to process just what this means for a relationship between David and the congregation. But they seem to contain some kind of assurance that the spiritual leadership of the church is in committed and guided hands and that God’s presence and power may be silent and invisible, but powerfully present. There is reason for optimism about our future.
Again, David, Welcome to First Christian Church.
Journey to the Ministry
By Rev. Daniel S. Lovell
I have been asked to write an article about your minister since I have known him virtually all his life. It is my privilege to share a bit about David’s journey.
David Clifford was brought to the Sebree Christian Church where I served as their minister as a six-year-old boy by his mother Peggy Clifford. He was accompanied by his four-year-old brother, Jack. Peggy had lost her husband in a horrible mine explosion when David was about two years old. Sebree Christian became their church. I have had really only two boys in my congregations on whom I felt that the Lord had laid his hand. Both of those men went to seminary and became ministers. David was the second of those. I never pushed or even told David that I felt he would be called into ministry. I was just there to nudge him along.
When he was just getting the saxophone under his belt, I had him play a duet with me on the piano for church. As he was finishing high school, I had heard that the Disciples were inviting seniors to come to Transylvania for a time of discovering a possible call to ministry. I encouraged David to go up for the week. They did a program called TEAM (Totally Excited About Ministry). David chose to go and went on to attend and to graduate from Transylvania. By that time, he recognized a call to ministry. As he considered seminaries, I encouraged him to strongly consider CTS in Indianapolis. He chose CTS and graduated with a counseling degree and a Master of Divinity. During his time at Christian Theological Seminary, he had to choose between Kentucky’s or Indiana’s committee on ministry to be guided toward ordination. Having served on those committees in both states, I felt he would have better care with the Indiana committee. He chose that committee. I have been so very privileged to have been able to point David to what I believed to be the very best preparation for becoming a Christian DOC minister. And now I am proud to say he is my pastor.
This past Sunday you have installed one of the best prepared ministers for which any church could hope. He is intelligent, well read and very articulate. In addition, he has a wonderful and supportive wife and sets an example of being a great father. It is my prayer that he will lead this church to becoming an even greater witness for Christ.
Covenanting for Mission
By Rev. Rachel Nance Woehler, West Area Regional Minister
There are moments in a pastor’s installation that seem like a wedding. Promises are made before God and witnesses. Pastor and Church are committing to one another in shared ministry and call in the work of God’s love made real. Like a wedding, it is a ceremony of covenanting.
God teaches us about covenants throughout scripture—in the story of creation, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, the Last Supper, and others. Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann points out that the Bible offers us both covenants where all of the relationship is settled, and covenants that have to be renegotiated and re-decided. We are human, after all. Not perfect. These covenants are not to be entered into lightly, but forgiveness also must play a part in the journey.
Ours is a God of covenantal partners, striving to build a new community on earth as it is in heaven. Jeremiah 31:31 says, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. “Therefore, on a day such as this, we articulate our covenantal hope—hope for ourselves, hope for our partners, and hope for the world made new.
Brueggemann writes, “The theology of covenanting is not worth the effort unless it leads to energy and courage for mission.” The cup of the Lord’s table—the cup of the new covenant—is a regular reminder of our call to that mission.
On this occasion of the installation of Rev. David Clifford, we put this call into practice. David reaffirmed his profession of faith, his baptism, and his ordination vows. And those gathered were asked, “Do you renew your own baptismal vows and commit yourself to supporting him with your prayers and shared responsibilities?” and granted the opportunity to renew their own baptismal vows as well. Then all gathered united with David in proclaiming the Preamble to the Design of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and we declared together,
In the name of Jesus Christ, the head of the church, we declare Reverend David Clifford properly installed as minister of this congregation; and we commend him to the grace of God in the discharge of all his duties as a minister of the gospel. May God count him worthy of his calling, and bring to fulfillment in him every good purpose and every act inspired by faith.
More than just a day to officially welcome a new pastor, an installation is the setting of a new relationship where we all strive to live into this covenant and mission with truth, purpose, and grace. God is doing something new, and so are we.
The Spirit July 3,2024
