wfn.org | Pilgrim Press joins UCC?s communication team, appoints new leadership

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

The Pilgrim Press joins UCC?s communication team, appoints new leadership

> Written by Staff Reports
> March 3, 2010

In a move intended to strengthen coordination among the United Church
of Christ's publishing, marketing and communication efforts, the Rev.
J. Bennett Guess, the denomination's director of communications, has
been appointed acting director of The Pilgrim Press / United Church
Press and the UCC's distribution service, United Church of Christ Resources.

Guess, a 10-year veteran of the UCC's national communication office in
Cleveland, will lead a four-to-five month transition to bring together
publishing and communications staff now housed in two separate
national ministries.

"Our goal is to provide a more strategic approach to communications,
one that would unite our products and services in shared staffing and
leadership and provide, we think, greater opportunities for visioning
and coordination," said the Rev. Stephen L. Sterner, executive
minister of the UCC's Local Church Ministries (LCM), and Edith A.
Guffey, the UCC's Associate General Minister, in a joint announcement
on Feb. 12.

"LCM engaged a consultant last year to look at the operations of
publications within Local Church Ministries, and one of the
consultant's recommendations was to explore this kind of blending to
enhance both efficiency and product," the two denominational officers said.

The Pilgrim Press, founded in 1640, is the oldest publisher in the
United States.

"The Pilgrim Press is valued deeply in the United Church of Christ, in
publishing and academic circles, and by many who have been shaped by
our thoughtful and cutting-edge publishing work," Sterner and Guffey
said. "This leadership transition is meant to position The Pilgrim
Press for its future and to position its staff to have a greater role
and impact in the overall communications strategy of the United Church
of Christ."

Guess, 43, who has headed the UCC's communication office since 2007,
is a former editor of United Church News and former communications
minister for the UCC's Justice and Witness Ministries. He also served
12 years as a local church pastor in Kentucky. He is a graduate of the
University of Kentucky School of Journalism, Vanderbilt University
Divinity School and the Chicago Theological Seminary.

Guess' appointment, which became effective March 1, follows the
resignation of the Rev. Timothy Staveteig, who served The Pilgrim
Press as an editor and publisher for 14 years. Staveteig will continue
part-time with The Pilgrim Press for three months but has announced
plans to leave the UCC to pursue other publishing work.

"Timothy has provided outstanding leadership for Pilgrim Press," said
Sterner. "He has moved the publications operations of LCM through some
significant and needed changes. His departure leaves us with a
challenge and an opportunity."

Sterner and Guffey said that, for several months, they have been
exploring how to better connect the work of the UCC's Proclamation,
Identity, and Communication (PIC) Ministry with the work and mission
of Pilgrim Press/United Church Press and UCC Resources.

"Over the next four to five months, we plan to introduce a newly
configured PIC ? Publishing, Identity and Communications ? that will
unite communications, marketing, editorial, production and electronic
media staff now housed in OGM and LCM into a common department," the two  said.

Guffey and Sterner said unified staffing has become an "emerging
reality" as the denomination's national setting continues to discuss a
streamlined governance structure that would bring together the UCC's
five autonomous governing boards.