c. 2000 Religion News Service

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. _ Betty Ward, the wife of a Methodist minister, nervously glanced around to see if anyone was watching, then mustered up her courage and walked into the liquor store.

She left empty-handed, but not because she wasn’t old enough, or because she had changed her mind about booze.

She was trying to find boxes for “Methodist moving week.”

“I’d never been in a liquor store in my life, but liquor boxes are the best boxes for packing,” said Ward, whose husband, Gary, has been the pastor at Huntsville’s Latham United Methodist Church for the past six years. “I told the man (at the liquor store) what I wanted, but he said the owner had already promised the boxes to a friend who was moving.”

Most United Methodist Church ministers throughout the United States who receive new assignments move during the month of June. In the North Alabama Conference, the second week of June was “Moving Week,” with June 14 set aside as the official “Moving Day,” said the Rev. Gary Formby, Huntsville district superintendent.

The Wards _ and the district’s other outgoing pastors _ had until noon that day to move out so the incoming minister could move in that afternoon.

But the entire week was devoted to moving for those who received new appointments, said Formby, who stopped by the Wards’ home to say goodbye.

He said teetotaling Methodist ministers have long frequented liquor stores _ for boxes.

“All Methodist ministers know about liquor stores,” said Formby with a laugh. “When it comes to packing, you can’t beat the liquor boxes.”

Formby bid farewell to some 13 ministers and their families in the Huntsville district and welcomed 13 others taking their places.

“I just stay long enough so I won’t have to load boxes on the truck,” he said.

Actually, Formby does occasionally pitch in if he has time, or if time is running out for one minister to vacate the premises so another can move in.

“We’ve all had to help out from time to time,” said Formby, who has served as a pastor and knows the bittersweet feeling of Methodist moving week.

“It is an emotional time, but by the time you get to moving day, you are just ready to go,” he said. “The agonizing parts are the days and weeks leading up to the moving day. The last sermon I did (as a pastor), I entitled it `How Do You Say Goodbye?’ There’s no easy way to do it, but each minister has their own unique way of doing it.”

Formby said Methodists are known for the “fruit basket turnover” approach when it comes to their ministers, but that things have changed over the last several years.

“We used to move about every four years,” he said. “Now, we’ve got people who are staying as many as 10 or 15 years, just depending on the situation and what the bishop wants. We don’t really move more than any other professionals, and actually we move less than ministers in many other denominations. I think our system works pretty well.”

For the Wards, this is their seventh move in 36 years, not counting a couple of moves while they were in school at Auburn University in Alabama and at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta.

“It was probably more emotional (moving) when the kids were here,” said Gary Ward. “We were really more concerned about their well-being and tried to promise them they would make new friends.”

Pastors scheduled to move are sent a checklist from the superintendent’s office to remind them of things to do before moving. It includes items such as preparing a list of people in the church needing pastoral care; up-to-date membership rolls; a list of church officers; schedules of weddings, baptisms and other church observances; a set of keys to the church and parsonage; and several other important things the replacement needs to know.

In addition to losing Ward, Latham Methodist Church experienced another loss this year with the departure of its associate pastor, the Rev. Grad Tanner, who is leaving the Methodist church to become a full-time evangelist. Tanner’s replacement is the Rev. Cheryl Blankenship, who is just moving down the road from First United Methodist of Huntsville.

For Blankenship, a third-generation Methodist minister, it has been a year of transition in more ways than one. She divorced earlier this year and is now a single parent with two boys, Jackson Russell, 7, and Nathan Russell, 4.

“The thing about our system (of moving) is that it is really tough on the children,” said Blankenship as she took a break from unpacking boxes. “I wanted to balance out the move so that it would be fulfilling for me with a church, and also for my children.

“But it is a system that works very well because you don’t have to worry about being without a church, or selling your house when you move.”

Including this transition, Blankenship has moved 16 times in her 36 years. She was born while her father, the Rev. Ray Blankenship of Athens, Ala., was attending Emory University, a Methodist school, in Atlanta.

Blankenship, a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York, has been a minister for seven years. She is grateful for all the help she received on moving day, not only from her family, but from other local Methodist ministers.

“I couldn’t have done it without all of them,” she said with a sigh as she wiped back a lock of hair from her forehead.

DEA END BETOWT