Ministeriums offer support, service
Ministers tend to their congregation and community, providing aid both spiritual and physical to those in need.
But what does a clergyman do when he’s the one in need, whether it be a sympathetic shoulder or some extra hands for a project?
Perhaps he turns to his ministerium, a group of clergy from the same area who come together to lend support and or address community needs.
“A ministerium is where various pastors come from all over the community — some Protestant, some Catholic — and they help the community,” said the Rev. Kurt Knobel, pastor of the United Methodist Church in Thorn Creek, the Connoquenessing United Methodist Church and the Emory Chapel in Sarver.
He belongs to the Christian Leadership Network, a group of 15 churches in Sarver, Saxonburg and Cabot.
Knobel was visiting retired pastor the Rev. Roland Skeen, 83, former pastor of St. Peter’s United Church of Christ in East Liberty. Skeen is a resident of the Shelbourne Personal Care Home in Penn Township.
Skeen said the churches in the East Liberty area had to band together during a difficult economic period.
“We were trying at the time to keep churches open and keep churches flourishing because they were closing churches in the city at the time because of financial difficulties, and a lot of people were moving out of the city and moving to the suburbs. It left many churches high and dry.
“We were kind of there for somebody to hang onto and say things were going to get better,” said Skeen.
“At the time it was a support group in many different ways. The community was changing very quickly and some people just couldn’t handle that,” Skeen said.
Fellow ministers can help their peers face the demands of their jobs, said Reid Moon, pastor of Zelienople Church of Christ, and convener of the Harmony/Zelienople Ministerium.
“We all have the same job,” said Moon. “We all face people that are discouraged or have cancer or are unemployed. They need their pastors to be refreshed and there for them.”
“There’s 12 churches. We’re the dirty dozen,” said Moon. “We are Protestant, Catholic and independent. We meet the first Thursday of the month at St. Peter’s Reformed Church on Grandview Avenue. We have 11:30 a.m. devotions and wrap up at 1 o’clock.”
“I’ve been the convener for about 10 years, and nobody else wants to do it. I get the group together,” said Moon. “I arrange for a guest to come; it might be the Seneca Valley school superintendent, the fire department or the women’s shelter or food pantry.”
“It’s just so the pastors can know a little more about the various service organizations that serve the community,” Moon said.
But it’s more than a support group. Moon said his ministerium is responsible for organizing a Good Friday Cross Walk for the last seven years.
The event starts at Grace Church at noon and visits other churches in the Harmony/Zelienople Ministerium before ending at Passavant Retirement Community.
Moon said other events organized by the ministerium include observance of the National Day of Prayer breakfast on the first Thursday in May, the “See You at the Flagpole” student prayer event the second Wednesday in September and the Good News Club religious education for second through sixth graders that is made available to students in the Seneca Valley School District with parental permission.
The Rev. Tom Harmon, pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Evans City, said the four churches in the Evans City area that make up its ministerium staged the recent choir music festival at Crestview Community Presbyterian Church in Callery.
Knobel said his ministerium conducts worship services on Thanksgiving and Good Friday, as well as helping with the jail ministry and food bank.
“There’s a lot that goes on that people don’t see,” said Knobel.
