ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 11, 1997 TAG: 9701130084
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
When a new minister comes into a church, he or she is often full of ideas of how to change it for the better, but the natural fear of change of members has to be met with teaching, gentleness and "a lot of listening."
That's the way the Rev. Vickie Lynn Houk is approaching her new pastorate at Christ Episcopal Church in downtown Pulaski. She began her ministry in late November and has bought a house for herself and her three cats on Prospect Avenue. Her most recent home was Alliance, Ohio, where she had an interim pastorate.
Most of her experience has been in small congregations like the dozens that attract New River Valley residents. In a recent interview she said she sees little churches as making a special contribution to their communities. They serve as extended families, not only for single persons like herself, but also for children growing up in a rapidly changing world where the security that tradition brings is needed.
"People in small churches need to celebrate their size, not spend their time worrying over why they don't grow," Houk said. This does not mean, she adds, that growth efforts are neglected. Parishes like her new one in Pulaski, for instance, need to build a ramp for the access of those in wheelchairs and do what they can to provide parking and visibility. They also need to think of their youth as valuable members, not "the church of the future," she added.
"Traditions are not dead things," Houk observed as she reflected on the patience needed to bring parish leaders into comfort with some new ways of doing things. As an example, she cited the practice of standing for prayers rather than the familiar kneeling. Education can show some worshipers that standing was common in the earliest days of Christianity.
"Having a sense of humor has saved me many a time," said Houk who can joke about her 5-foot frame that is almost lost behind the pulpit. She radiates energy.
If small congregations are ideally large families, they also are challenged by a lack of money to keep full-time, capable pastors and to do much for the needy outside the congregation, Houk observed. She sees the survival of many churches with 50 or fewer members as dependent on some type of ministerial sharing. Mainstream American denominations are trying several strategies for education, pastoral care and worship leadership, she pointed out.
Such changes are easy to talk about but often hard to implement, Houk said. Church members expect a full-time pastor for every church, but such expenses as pensions and medical insurance are making the expected impossible in an increasing number of rural and town churches.
Cross-denominational programs, such as Houk envisions with the Rev. Terrie Sternberg, pastor of the nearby Trinity Lutheran Church in Pulaski, can help in some areas. Pulaski is an especially blessed town, Houk said, with four major ecumenical ministries in which the county's churches cooperate. These include the Daily Bread lunch program, the Logos midweek children's Christian education, volunteer chaplaincy at Columbia Pulaski Community Hospital and a weekly public breakfast served at Christ Church.
Facts about Vickie Houk
NAME: The Rev. Vickie Lynn Houk
BIRTHPLACE AND DATE: Rapid City, S.D., on April 5, 1948.
EDUCATION: South Dakota State University in Brookings; School of Theology, University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. Several additional courses in interim ministry training, counseling of hospice patient families, women in ministry and "spiritual abuse."
ORDINATION: To diaconate in 1989 and Episcopal priesthood in 1990.
EARLIER CAREER: Medical technologist in hospital and private practice settings in Yankton and Sioux Falls, S.D., for 15 years.
WHY IN THE MINISTRY: From a Roman Catholic family, the pre-Vatican II church "turned me off in childhood when I was told I couldn't be a priest. I dropped out of church altogether for years until some Episcopal co-workers in South Dakota in 1980 invited me to a service." The Cursillo spiritual growth movement also impressed Houk, and she was confirmed an Episcopalian in 1982. Two years later, awhile attending a church meeting, she was so moved by a woman celebrating the Eucharist that her childhood dream of doing so herself was revived.
WHAT SHE LIKES ABOUT THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH: Its openness to interpretation of Scripture and Christian tradition as well as to women in ordained ministry and the beauty of its worship services.
PASTORAL EXPERIENCE: Assistant at churches in Toledo and Sandusky, Ohio. Then interim rector at churches in Monroeville, Medina and Alliance, Ohio.
WHAT TO CALL HER: Vickie or Pastor Houk. "I've never been married, and I'm not comfortable with the title of "Mother."
WHY IN PULASKI: Never in Virginia before her interview the past fall, Houk learned of the vacancy from a retired clergyman, the Rev. Herbert Myers, who formerly lived in Blacksburg and moved last year to an Ohio retirement home. Ready for a settled community and her own parish, she "fell in love with the mountains like my Black Hills" in South Dakota.
FAVORITE PASTIMES: Reading, walking, looking at movies from the 1930s and '40s and enjoying her three cats, Cuddles, Snuggles and Tigger. The short-haired felines, all rescued from extinction by their owner, reflect her lifelong attachment to animals.
MINISTERIAL STRENGTHS: "I love preaching through storytelling and informal exchange with the congregation and I am a self-starter as a leader." Houk said she sees herself as an enabler of lay people who are well equipped in Christ Church to maintain its program. She sees Episcopal worship as both "reverent and joyful."
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: The Rev. Vickie Lynn Houk is new rector at Christby CNBEpiscopal Church in downtown Pulaski.