Siladi Coming Back to His Roots With Connecticut's UCC Churches

Way back when he was a pastor in North Guilford and a regional minister in Connecticut, the Rev. Kent Siladi had an affection for Florida.

He vacationed there. He liked the climate. He liked the fact that people said hello to him while in the supermarket - "and meant it." Then, he was thrilled - every day - to be the United Church of Christ's conference minister there.

But there was always this one call, this one position. He never said he would try to walk on water up the East Coast to get it, but it was always in the back of his head …

"I was really happy where I was in Florida. It couldn't have been any better. I was at the top of my game and we were flying along," Siladi said this week in an interview with Patch. "Part of me was always thinking there was only one position I would consider."

Well …

On March 4, the Connecticut Conference Minister Search Committee recommended the 57-year-old Siladi to become the next state conference minister. He was subsequently voted in.

"I'm really excited," Siladi said on Tuesday, his second day back in Connecticut. "Part of me is pinching myself, part of me is kicking myself. Some see it as an impossible job because there is a lot to do. But I say why not now?"

The joke about impossibility comes with the territory because Connecticut is a huge player in the UCC. It has 15 regional associations that encompass 253 churches and each is allowed to govern itself. Some of them go way back  - they were chartered with English pounds even before there was a United States. There are two major seminaries related to the UCC in Yale Divinity School and Hartford Seminary.

It took three years of an interim period before the conference could settle on a new minister after the Rev. Davida Foy Crabtree retired from the position.

But the stars seem to be aligned. Siladi is even house-sitting at Crabtree's South Windsor home while he and his wife, Laura, look for a home in the Greater Hartford area. They already have an offer on the Florida house, he said.

"Maybe it's a scheme - God's plan for me to do some work here," Siladi said.

Siladi grew up in Stamford and attended the First Congregational Church there. He received his divinity degree from Yale and served in Brookfield and North Guilford before taking on a regional minister position. He then went to Florida and served for five-and-a-half years.

"Part of what I want to do here is to find a big idea that will bring our churches together," Siladi said. "I want to start something we can build on - something we can stick on a signpost for the future."

Siladi said he wants to spend his first few months back, "getting out and meeting people," to rekindle existing relationships and create new ones.

He said, "I want to ask people some questions … 'What can we excel at?' … 'When looking at us, what do people say?' … 'What can we add in our lives to add to the passion?' … and 'What witness can we make to the state of Connecticut?'"

He then added, "The largest number of people in the state - if I have the correct statistic - is people with no religious affiliation. We need to go outside our own walls and reach out to the community. It's not that complicated to understand what churches should be doing - expressing and deepening our faith in God and impacting the community. If we are not impacting the community, then we have lost direction."

Three issues Siladi says are of immediate concern - "economic disparity" in the state, "gun violence" with the state in the spotlight in the wake of Newtown shootings, and "the whole initiative to care for God's creation." That is a major focus of the denomination's General Synod this week in Long Beach, CA.

Yes, Siladi moved from Florida, started house shopping, started his new call and went across the country.

But he has a plan for when he returns.

"Silver Lake is a crown Jewel," Siladi said of the Connecticut's Conference's retreat center in Sharon. "We can showcase it as a regional example of how to tread lightly upon the Earth."

One big challenge - a huge challenge - for a conference minister in Hartford is to fight that "A" word.

Autonomy.

The trick is to let the churches be churches on Sunday, but stand united in mission, Siladi said.

"We have to be together. We can no longer exist as autonomous units," he said. "We have to find out what individual churches do well and resource each other. We have to work together."

And Siladi said he is ready for that challenge.