Knox United welcomes new minister

After a year without a minister, Knox United Church here has a fresh face to lead the congregation.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to work with some really talented and committed people at the church,” said Rev. Barb Miller. “I think we’ll be well-matched.”
Originally from Woodstock, Ont., Rev. Miller moved to Rainy River District after being ordained in 1990. She’s served at United churches in Rainy River, Emo, Devlin, Nestor Falls, and Sioux Narrows.
She lives with her husband and three children north of Stratton on a farm with Hereford cattle. A “4-H family,” they often can be seen at local fairs.
“I have met many of the people [at Knox United] over the years, and I’m looking forward to working with the people I already know and meeting some of the new ones,” she said.
Another thing Rev. Miller is looking forward to is the strong church community that exists here.
“They did pretty much all the worship services on their own for a year, which is really good,” she remarked. “That just shows how deep the bench is.
“They have a lot of people with talent and it’s been a lot of work, I know for the worship community, but they’ve done it,” she added. “They’ve done it and they’ve done it well.”
That people were still joining Knox United Church, even without having a minister for the whole year, impressed her.
“To me that says something about who you are as a church because so often people are going, ‘Oh well, why are you joining there? There’s no minister.’ Well, obviously there’s a strong community,” she said.
“So I’m excited about working with the strong community, and I think it’s going to be fun.
“I’m sure it will be busy. Ministry is always busy,” admitted Rev. Miller. “A lot of people figure the minister gets up Sunday morning, preaches, and then has nothing else to do all week long.
“I’ve had people ask me what my other job was.”
Rev. Miller will be doing three services a month at Knox, and also will be available for non-denominational weddings and funerals.
The full-time position, alongside having a ministry stronger in traditional areas like Sunday worship, also will allow her to work with other aspects of the church, like creative worship, she said.
“I’m open to lots of ideas, other things that people have put on the backburner because they’ve been without ministry staff,” Rev. Miller said. “So say if people have ideas, I’m happy to explore them together.
“If the church wants to take a new direction, then I can go that way, I can put my time and energy into helping them move in the new direction, or to explore new things like how do we want to support our younger families [and] what that’s going to look like,” she stressed.
“I think there’s some exciting things happening, or that are beginning to form that are going to take some weeding and fertilizing, but [it’s an] opportunity to work at that.”
One campaign Rev. Miller is hoping to pursue is the one launched by the national United Church two years ago, called “The Emerging Spirit.”
It aims to look at being the church in the “post-Christian” era,” she said, and comes out of a survey commissioned by the church at the national level to discover what people are looking for in a church.
“[People are] looking for a church that’s interested in justice issues. They’re looking for a church that is interested in asking questions and allowing them to explore those questions,” said Rev. Miller.
“Most people think that the church is about telling them what to think and do, and as a younger church we are very much not that,” she stressed.
The results of what people wanted in a church, and what the United Church is, match, noted Rev. Miller, so the campaign is about sharing the image of what the United Church is to the larger community.
“It’s how to enhance the spiritual life of the people that are on the fringes of the church and in the wider community,” she remarked.
“How to share the good news of God’s love, with the wider community, but also how to nurture and support each other within and outside of the church.”