Nicole’s e-Pistle

October 1, 2025

Greetings, Friends!

I’m back from Little Rock, Arkansas! I had an incredible week at the Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center. (For pictures of the beautiful grounds I have enjoyed for the past week, please check them out at ferncliff.org.) If any of you have reached out to me in the past week, I was not ignoring you on purpose. I accidentally left my phone on the dining room table as I headed off to the airport. I did not discover my mistake until after I had gone through security and was sitting in the terminal! Thanks be to God for strangers at the airport and new friends I met at the conference who allowed me to borrow their phones. I was able to text Bjorn and my Mom that I had arrived safely, as well as talk to the kids for about 15 minutes before bed each evening!

Now that I am back, I wanted to share a little of what I experienced at the CREDO conference. CREDO, originally inspired by a similar program in the Episcopal Church, is put together by the PC(USA) Board of Pensions. It’s mission and purpose is “to provide opportunities for clergy to examine significant areas of their lives and to discern prayerfully the future direction of their vocation as they respond to God’s call in a lifelong process of practice and transformation.” There are three times in any pastor’s career when they may be invited to participate (the conferences are by invitation only). The first is a two-year program designed for newly ordained pastors. I just participated in Year A and will attend Year B during the last week of September 2026. There is also a CREDO for pastors who are in the middle of their careers, as well as one for pastors who are nearing retirement.

The premise behind CREDO is threefold. First, it is rooted in what they call IDPT – Identity (Who am I?), Discernment (Who is God calling me to be?), Practice (How am I responding?), and Transformation (How am I changing?). For year A, we focused mainly on Identity and Discernment. We explored our individual core values through a fascinating process of self-reflection. Core values can change slightly over time, but often they can stay with us for a lifetime. For now, I discovered that my top five core values are love, empathy, social justice, compassion, and generosity. The remainder of the week was spent learning how to live into those core values while also tending to our ability to flourish in the areas of spiritual, vocational, financial, physical, and emotional well-being. Throughout the week, we worshipped together each day and had a mixture of plenary lessons, one-on-one discussions with faculty advisors, and small group sessions with our peers. We also had ample time for prayer and personal self-reflection, whether through sitting by the lake or stream, walking the prayer labyrinth, reading a book under the shade of a tree, or taking a walk on one of the hiking trails up the mountains (which I avoided due to the absence of a phone and the presence of spiders).

By the end of the week, each participant had created a “Rule of Life,” which is a way of engaging with the IDPT model in a practical way. As CREDO explains it…

Crafting a personal rule of life that is based on core values is a way to live into what both Jesus and Paul taught about the importance of a faith grounded in the internal life of the Spirit.

Jesus warned of those who are like whitewashed tombs – looking good on the outside, even though the inside is corrupted and dead. Paul wrote, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” He knew that when we attempt to justify ourselves by obedience to law, we always come up short. It is the inner, integrated presence of the Spirit that truly makes holiness possible.

It will take time for me to continue processing the experiences I had over the past week. I have sketched out a rule of life that is designed to keep me on track spiritually, physically, emotionally, and financially, so that I may continue to serve this congregation vocationally for many years to come. I pray that, with God’s help, I will continue to live into who I am and who God is calling me to be: a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, and your pastor… I am filled with love and overwhelmed with gratitude!

Blessings and Peace,