On Sunday, October 28th, Pastor Mariah Marlin-Warfield was unanimously selected at the Congregational Meeting as the new pastor for the Church of Peace. She will begin here in February.
More than 60 people attended the All Church Open House Social on Saturday night to meet Pastor Mariah Marlin- Warfield and her husband, Chris. Over 150 were present on Sunday to be part of the worship service she led. Thank you to the Search Committee for their dedication and time involved in this great process!!
Mariah herself comes from a family of ministers, as her grandfather and father were ministers in the UCC. She grew up in Pennsylvania and Ohio. As a teenager, Mariah developed a spiritual commitment to nonviolence and peacemaking, which inspired her involvement in social justice work during college at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She received her Master of Divinity degree from Chicago Theological Seminary in May 2007. Pastor Mariah was ordained in Dec. 2008 in the Eastern Ohio Association of the Ohio UCC Conference. Mariah has served as the Youth & Family Life Pastor at UCC Congregational Church in Medina, Ohio, since Nov. 2008.
Mariah met her husband, Chris, at seminary. He, too, earned his Masters in Divinity in 2007. Chris is a Church Relations Associate for the Back Bay Mission. Back Bay Mission is a UCC ministry which serves the Mississippi Gulf Coast and wider church community. Chris received his Bachelors degree from Knox College in Galesburg, and is a native of Platteville, Wis.
“Ministry means telling the whole of God’s unfolding truth. And the good news is that nobody can do this alone. What we can do is show up together and let the invitation reverberate through our body. Come you poets and give us the words; you musicians lay down the beat. Come you prophets and remind us of our courage; you who know numbers do the math. Come you scientists and expand our understanding; you hard workers make us keep at it. Come you who are broken, we’ll wipe away every tear. Come you who bring the coffee, we need your comfort and your call awake. Come you who take and are taken hostage, we will undo your chains. Let all of us come. Together we perceive the new thing God is doing and practice the promise that springs forth. Our ministry is alive, our call is together, and truth is here for the telling. Thanks be to God.”
-Portion of Mariah Marlin-Warfield’s Statement of Ministry
Check out link to her candidating service here: http://churchofpeaceucc.org/featured/pastor-mariahs-candidating-service/