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Click Here to read Rev. Dr. Paul Tellström's Candidating Sermon - 2/26/06
Dear Members and Friends of Irvine United Congregational Church,
On Sunday,
February 26, 2006, a special congregational meeting was convened
specifically to vote on the Call of candidate, Rev. Dr. Paul G. Tellstrom as Pastor of the Irvine United Congregational Church.
With over
225 people in attendance, including 140 corporate and 8
non-corporate eligible voters, the vote to Call Rev. Dr. Tellstrom as
our next Pastor was unanimous.
Pastor
Tellstrom will officially begin his duties on Wednesday, April 26th,
and his first day in the pulpit will be Sunday April 30th.
In
material provided for the congregation prior to the congregational
vote, our Pastoral Search Committee Chair, Keith Boyum, wrote:
His skills
at preaching and leading worship especially stand out. The Search
Committee saw and heard him preach via DVD, saw and heard him preach
in person on a Sunday in January, and read still more of his sermons
via the Internet. We were more than merely impressed! His warm and
upbeat personality emerges as he brings to the pulpit a hope-filled
and joyous demeanor. His messages proceed on a foundation of
Biblical scholarship and sensitivity to the needs and concerns of
the congregation. Small wonder that upon his graduation with the
Master of Divinity degree from Claremont School of Theology in 1997
he won the prize for outstanding preaching. To further develop his
remarkable gifts in homiletics he plans in the next year or so to
finish his Doctor of Ministry degree at the Chicago Theological
School.
The Rev. Dr. Paul G. Tellstrom, currently serves as Senior Pastor at the Mt.
Hollywood Congregational Church in Los Angeles.
Since June 1998
Paul has brought leadership and vision to a Mt.
Hollywood congregation that upon his arrival was in
evident need of renewal. Average Sunday attendance –
just 30 in 1998 – had tripled by 2003. The physical
plant was updated and refreshed. The community presence
of Mt. Hollywood was revitalized.
This growth in both spirit and numbers has drawn notice.
- A 2001 article in the Los Angeles Times featured the congregation on the front page – the front page – complete with photograph.
- Mt. Hollywood was featured in Dr. William Avery’s book, Revitalizing Congregations [Alban Institute, 2002].
- The congregation received the Martin Luther King Jr. Award for Social Justice in 2002.
- In 2003 independent filmmaker David Gates completed a full-feature documentary about Mt. Hollywood.
A racially and culturally diverse gathering, Mt. Hollywood has a
formal Open & Affirming status within the United Church of Christ
(as has IUCC). Roughly 20% of the congregants identify themselves
as GLBT. Intriguingly, Mt. Hollywood strongly identifies as
pacifist. The congregation opposed the World War II internment of
Americans of Japanese heritage, and boasts an altar cross made of
charred timbers from Hiroshima.
Paul has a
remarkable record in taking action himself, and in helping others to
understand and to act, upon issues of social justice. Of special
note is Rev. Tellstrom’s receipt of the Paul Rothman Humanitarian
Award in 2001, given by AIDS ReSearch Alliance in honor of his
service to the fight against HIV/AIDS. He is the current board
president of Hope-Net, a nonprofit, inter-faith agency that serves
people in need at ten food pantries, with ten more slated to open,
and affordable apartments. Paul’s heart for those in need also
marked his recently completed service at Kingsley Manor Retirement
Home. As chaplain he called regularly and with a warm touch on a
community diverse in culture, race and religion, and brought counsel
and pastoral care alike to those who regard themselves as Christians
and to those who have other identities.
In personal terms, Paul’s references describe him as intelligent yet
personable, a wonderful communicator, witty, and quick to stimulate
or take part in a laugh. His undergraduate degree from Syracuse
University was in theatre, and he was an actor in New York City for
ten years before coming to Los Angeles, where Paul responded to his
calling to ministry.
In theological terms, Paul writes:
I am theologically liberal, and believe that the
Bible is our first and best resource for understanding not only God,
but also the human perceptions of God, which have shifted in the
pages of the Bible and continue to do so today. I believe that the
Bible is our primary source, but when opened it must be surrounded
by valid scholarship and text-criticism; it must be studied with its
historical, literary, geographical, and linguistic connotations
attached and examined.
Paul continues, noting that:
Too often is the Bible used, as the Rev.
William Sloan Coffin once said, ‘like a drunk uses a lamppost – for
support rather than for illumination.’ I believe in the power of
the Scriptures to shed illumination on our present daily lives, and
to give us wisdom for grappling with the myriad of ethical issues
that faces us. I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ points us
to a universal, inclusive love, and is encapsulated in the command
to love God, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. |
