UCC welcomes sabbatical pastor to church

Union Congregational United Church of Christ was so excited to announce in October 2019 that they were the recipients of a National Clergy Renewal Grant funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. The grant, totaling $46,618, would allow the church to hire a Sabbatical Interim for three months, plus cover expenses for their pastor to be on sabbatical leave. This was all to take place in the summer of 2020. Then Covid-19 happened. Plans for an interim got cancelled and sabbatical leave was put on hold.

As 2021 unfolded with vaccines and declines in active cases in most of the world, the church got back to planning. Sabbatical Take 2 is scheduled to begin July 2, when the Reverend Laura Beth Buchleiter arrives to be the Sabbatical Interim. The Rev. Jenny Boteler will leave for a time of renewal on July 12.

Union’s sabbatical is focused on Soul Care: A Time to Re-center, Renew and Engage Mind, Body and Spirit in New Learnings. Creating sacred time and space, Boteler will engage in travel, activities and disciplines to re-center her energy and sense of purpose, as well as renew and deepen her relationships with God, self, family and friends. Members of the church will also undertake activities to renew a sense of wonder and gratitude as they too deepen relationships with God and each other in the naturally beautifully setting.

Boteler will spend mid-July to mid-October on a spiritual journey as well as a physical one. Using Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward, she will do a 13-week spiritual dive into exploring faith, vision and purpose for the second half of life. The physical journey will have its home base in Texas with family and longtime friends and involve an on-going yoga and meditation practice. From there, Boteler will travel to Costa Rica for Spanish Immersion, to Greece and Israel for yoga, kayaking and pilgrimage to holy places of ancient faiths.

During these three months, the members of Union will be entering into a 90-day Gratefulness practice. The Faith Formation team is already gearing up for a fun Vacation Bible School and there will be several opportunities to take worship and fellowship into the great Wyoming outdoors.

As Union Congregational UCC prepares for Sabbatical Take 2, they are excited to announce Buchleiter’s arrival in early July to serve as their Sabbatical Pastor. Buchleiter is a recent graduate of Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis.

She was ordained as a Minister of the Gospel on May 23, 2021, by University Baptist Church in Bloomington, Indiana, aligned with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

She is the first transgendered person to be ordained in the CBF.

The Reverend Laura Beth Buchleiter was born and raised in a Christian, military family and has lived in 28 locations from coast to coast in the United States, as well as a few years in Puerto Rico. She was baptized into the Methodist Church in Albuquerque, N.M., and later confirmed in that tradition at a church in Chesapeake, Va.

In her young adult years, Laura Beth was active in Young Life and leading worship for a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) in Williamsburg, Va. She studied Bible and communications at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and earned a BA from Dallas Baptist University. She worked in a wide variety of ministry positions and organizations.

Life took a major turn for the Reverend Buchleiter when she came out as a transgender lesbian woman in 2014.

After nearly 10 years in therapy and being told God would “fix” her gender identity, and following an attempted suicide, she began to see that the only thing that needed to be fixed was the limits she had put on God’s creativity.

After coming out, she was also diagnosed with an intersex condition - further demonstrating that God has more in mind for our bodies than the traditional understanding of male/female genders. Since then, she has been reshaping her understanding of God, church, and scripture.

In the fall of 2016, she self-published a book entitled “Shattering Masks: Affirming My Identity and Transitioning My Faith.” The book is a collection of stories highlighting her journey toward living authentically. 

The Reverend Buchleiter currently makes her home base in Indianapolis. In addition to writing, speaking, and working with local faith communities, she keeps herself busy as an artist, musician, parent, and grandparent.

Her vision and vocation for the next several years is working as an interim pastor both with churches facing challenging seasons of change and transitions and filling in for hard-working pastors taking much-needed sabbaticals.

She has a long-term vision for incorporating work as a spiritual director, artist, and pastor, with others in the fields of therapy, mediation, and wellness in a ministry centered on peace and reconciliation. Faithful, flexible obedience is the ultimate goal, embracing all the adventures that may come about.