United Church News United Church of Christ The Rev. J. Bennett Guess, news director March 13, 2006 newsroom@ucc.org
The Rev. Scott S. Libbey, who served as a National and Conference UCC leader for more than 30 years, died on March 12 at a Des Moines, Iowa, hospital, United Church News has learned. He was 76.
Libbey was executive vice president of the former United Church Board for World Ministries, the UCC's overseas mission arm, from 1984 until his retirement on Jan. 1, 1994. He also served as Iowa Conference Minister from 1971 to 1984.
Libbey and his wife, Jean, were members of Plymouth UCC in Des Moines. For the past two years, they lived at Mayflower Homes, a UCC-related retirement community in Grinnell, Iowa.
Bob Mann, Plymouth UCC's director of administration, described Libbey as "a man of integrity and goodness."
"Though we grieve Scott's death, we are thankful to have known him, to have had him as part of our lives and part of the Conference life and part of Plymouth's life," Mann said in an e-mail announcement. "He was a blessing to all whose lives he touched."
The Rev. John H. Thomas, UCC General Minister and President, recalls that, at a retirement celebration held in Libbey's honor at the 1993 General Synod/Assembly in St. Louis, Thomas was amazed, but not surprised, by the broad admiration and high esteem that Libbey enjoyed across the church. "He exercised leadership with such incredible grace and warmth," Thomas said, recalling Libbey's encouraging style and hopeful demeanor.
"Scott was one of the great saints of the United Church of Christ," Thomas said in an e-mail to the UCC's national staff.
The Rev. Robert Chase, the UCC's communications director, says Libbey had almost unmatched skill before a video camera. "The way he could tell a story," Chase recalled, "... he was just so good, so articulate."
Reared in Ford Dodge, Iowa, Libbey served as student assistant minister of Hyde Park Union Church in Chicago (1952-1954), then as minister of First Congregational Church, Red Oak, Iowa, until 1959. He was director of Christian education for the Congregational Christian Conference of Iowa
(1959-1961).
Libbey joined the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries' Division of Christian Education staff in 1961, serving first as secretary for youth ministry and later as director of educational programs. From 1968 to mid-1971, Libbey was the UCC's Nebraska Conference Minister.
Libbey held a B.A. degree from the State University of Iowa (1951) and a B.Div. from UCC-related Chicago Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago (1954). He completed graduate studies in England at Cambridge University and Oxford University and received honorary doctorates from three UCC-related schools: Chicago Theological Seminary (1972); Lakeland College, Sheboygan, Wis. (1989), and Defiance (Ohio) College (1989).
An active ecumenist, Libbey served as a UCC delegate in 1983 to the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver, Canada, and to the WCC's Seventh Assembly in Canberra, Australia, in 1991.
The funeral will be held at 11 a.m., on Tuesday, March 21 in Plymouth UCC in Des Moines. The Rev. David Ruhe, senior minister, will officiate.
Expressions of sympathy can be sent to Jean Libbey, 516 State Street, Grinnell, IA 50112.
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