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Sidorak combines ecumenical expertise, justice concerns

Sep. 22, 2008    News media contact:   Linda  Bloom * (646) 3693759*   New York {394}

NOTE: Photographs and a related story are available at  http://umns.umc.org

>By Linda Bloom*

DAYTON, Ohio (UMNS)-The Rev. Stephen J. Sidorak Jr. knows ecumenism from  the pew up.

The 58-year-old United Methodist clergyman has organized Christians to  pray and protest, developed guidelines to help them discuss issues and  beliefs, and brought them together to worship and advocate for justice.

He has co-founded organizations opposing legalized gambling and nuclear  weapons, as well as groups supporting HIV/AIDS ministries and  interreligious understanding.

Now Sidorak, a member of the denomination's Rocky Mountain Annual  (regional) Conference, is the new chief executive of the United  Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, the  church's ecumenical agency.

After serving for more than 20 years as executive director of the  Christian Conference of Connecticut, he was elected to his new post  during the commission's Sept. 17-21 meeting in suburban Dayton.

"I've come home," Sidorak told United Methodist News Service. "I've been  welcomed very warmly back to my own communion."

Sidorak's years of state council experience have resulted in "a deep  appreciation for the challenges of ecumenism at the grassroots level,"  according to the Rev. Jack Johnson, a fellow United Methodist in the  Greater New Jersey Conference.

Johnson-whose own longtime engagement in interfaith and public policy  activities led to his taking the top position with the Massachusetts  Council of Churches this past year-said that Sidorak's relationships  with ecumenical council directors across the United States will be "a  real plus" for The United Methodist Church.

>Calling begins in Colorado

Sidorak's calling as an ecumenist emerged when Bishop Melvin Wheatley  Jr., who ordained him in 1978, suggested he apply to lead the Colorado  Council of Churches.

He served there 1982-85 before becoming director of the peace center of  the Christian Conference of Connecticut. "I realized that this  (ecumenism) was for me," he said about that first state council  experience. "It's been that way ever since."

The move to Connecticut also changed his geographic focus to what he  laughingly refers to as "serving in exile on the East Coast." But it was  not his first journey to the Northeast. Sidorak's study at Yale Divinity  School earned him a Master of Divinity degree in 1975 and a Master of  Sacred Theology degree in 1976 and began a lifelong connection to Yale.

Among his Yale friends is David Lamarre-Vincent, a Roman Catholic  layperson and director of the New Hampshire Council of Churches for 18  years. Lamarre-Vincent calls state councils "an essential link in the  interreligious and ecumenical work of the church both in the United  States and internationally." At the state level, ecumenical executives  often "serve as catalysts," not just on matters of Christian unity but  on issues of justice, peace and reconciliation.

Lamarre-Vincent said Sidorak's tenure as a senior ecumenical steward  makes him a good leader for the commission. "As an outside observer, The  United Methodist Church has been one of the strongest members of the  state ecumenical councils," he said. "I think Rev. Sidorak's preparation  uniquely qualifies him to be a leader of The United Methodist Church  worldwide."

>Working toward peace

>From the beginning, issues of peace and justice have been integrated  into Sidorak's ministry.

As pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City from  1978-80, he "became a scholar of nuclear weapons and policy" and  successfully worked to prevent the MX missile system from being deployed  in Utah.

During that period, he asked the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, another  Yale friend, to come and help convince the leadership of the Church of  Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that the missiles should not be there.  "We got acquainted on a working relationship around a nuclear crisis,"  Sidorak recalled.

They became close friends and together established a new national  interreligious organization on nuclear weapons. After Coffin's death at  age 81, Sidorak wrote a reflection for the May/June 2006 edition of  Zion's Herald magazine (now The Progressive Christian) "celebrating the  wit and wisdom of a peerless prophet."

While lamenting the loss of the outspoken advocate for peace and  justice, he reminded readers that Coffin "taught us very well how to  bear public witness. So, in the name of God, let's get going and  demonstrate ecumenically and interreligiously our own commitment to what  Bill called 'a politically engaged spirituality.'"

Sidorak continued his own public witness after assuming the leadership  of the Connecticut conference in 1987. The organization sponsored an  annual ecumenical forum and other public events; organized an annual  peace and justice convocation; published a "Pastoral Statement on School  Desegregation"; and established ecumenical guidelines for dialogue on  "church-dividing issues" and on participation in interreligious worship.

>In Defense of Creation

United Methodist Bishop C. Dale White asked Sidorak to become a  consultant on the "In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just  Peace" document issued by the denomination's Council of Bishops in 1986.  Sidorak said he was thrilled "because I was so happy for the leadership  he and others were providing at that time." In Sidorak's opinion,  interreligious efforts on the nuclear issue "restored some sanity to the  world."

White affirms Sidorak's passionate commitment to peace issues, as well  as his global perspective and range of experience. He points to the need  to look at theology and the early Scriptures to gain wisdom for living  on this earth.

"From my perspective, Steve comes from that broader base of  understanding and extensive missional outreach," White said. "That's  certainly going to be a foundation on which he's going to base  everything else."

In 1982, the Colorado Council of Churches was a co-sponsor of "An  Evening for Peace: A Colorado Call for Nuclear Disarmament" on the State  Capitol steps in Denver. Sidorak and singer John Denver were  co-organizers and hosts of the demonstration, which drew more than  30,000 people and featured Jimmy Buffet, Judy Collins and The  Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band.

Three days after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the  Connecticut conference sponsored a service at the Cathedral of St.  Joseph in Hartford, drawing 3,000 people to the largest interreligious  gathering in the state's history. Sidorak said he was able to organize  the service quickly because the connections already existed through the  seven-year-old Connecticut Council for Interreligous Understanding.

The continuing reverberations of 9/11 have contributed to the demand to  bring an interreligious component to the ecumenical table. "The key  thing is not that United Methodists and Muslims work together, but that  Christians in all their branches and Muslims in all their branches meet  together," he said.

>Horizontal integration of ecumenism

The Rev. Russell Meyer, executive director of the Florida Council of  Churches, refers to the "silo" effect of the ecumenical movement-with  its vertical components but no horizontal integration. Often, the  handling of doctrinal differences and official relations among  denominations are separated from the practical aspects of ecumenism at  the congregational level.

What Sidorak brings to his new role "is an integration of the various  forms of ecumenism that are out there being practiced," said Meyer, a  clergy member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Meyer said Sidorak's fellow council directors are pleased that his  credentials and passion for justice "have been so publicly recognized by  his church."

The Rev. Nancy Jo Kemper, a clergy member of the United Church of Christ  and executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, said Sidorak  has "an awareness of what sells and what doesn't sell" at the local  church level.

"I think his experience with the Christian Conference of Connecticut has  given him a kind of bird's eye view of church life across all  denominations," she said.

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*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

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United Methodist News Service Photos and stories also available at: http://umns.umc.org

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