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Mike Bass and Pullman UCC begin ministry together

As the pastor of Community Congregational UCC (CCUCC) in Pullman since June, Mike Bass, entering ministry after a career testing air quality, has found a ministry for his passion to promote justice and the wellbeing of all.

Mike Bass settles into active community ministry in Pullman. Photo courtesy of Mike Bass

The church has a UCC designation as a just peace church and an open and affirming church. It recently declared a commitment to environmental justice and is seeking the UCC designation for Accessible to All.

It designates the loose offerings it collects each week to partners in the community and the Palouse as a tangible way to have worshipers aware of the various ways of serving people.

CCUCC also offers events not just for its members but also to draw people from the community into its life.

In April 2023, the church declared its values in artistic panels showing the Palouse countryside and incorporating words of its five values: faith, justice, progressive, inclusive and caring.

Mike shared his journey into this ministry as he begins.

Growing up on the outskirts of Tyler, Texas, he appreciated the outdoors, playing in the forest behind his house and in nearby pastures.

When he was 12, his 16-year-old sister was in a coma after a car accident. As she recovered, the family felt it was a gift, but six years later she was in another car accident, thrown out and crushed.

“That was eventually the impetus for me to enter ministry to help people better understand and process God in such circumstances. The Southern Baptist Church I grew up in did not give me the tools to cope with the loss and grief,” said Mike.

At Texas A&M University he studied geography and environmental management and policy, graduating in 1998 and finding a job in Dallas testing outdoor air quality and levels of pollutants for refineries and other polluters for 11 years.

Mike was driven by the capitalistic, American dream of working hard and earning money to have more things as he moved with work to Houston, to New Jersey to be near his wife’s family and then to Phoenix.

Along the way, he switched from the value of making money, acquiring possessions and working 70 hours.

He wanted to be authentically present with people at work, home, friends and himself. That’s his goal now.

While in New Jersey, he and his wife spent weekends in the Pocono Mountains and attended St Vladimir Russian Orthodox Church, a community focused church that stirred in him the desire to find and love a community.

Unable to find work and with his marriage broken in Phoenix, he moved to Fort Worth, where his uncle was senior minister of a large Pentecostal, spirit-filled Church of God in Christ. Mike helped create PowerPoints to project the words to hymns and scriptures.

“Sitting behind my computer, I could see how the congregation was affected by the music and worship for Sunday morning and evening, and Wednesday evening services,” he said.

Through that, self-study of Scripture, helping in the church and volunteering with social clubs and community services, Mike discerned a call to parish ministry. He went from working 60 hours a week consulting on air quality with hospitals, universities and for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and going to church, to working 50 hours a week and volunteering 10 hours at the church and then to working 40 hours and serving 20 to 30 hours at the church.

In 2015 he took a leap of faith, put his house up for sale and began studies at Brite Divinity School, an ecumenical seminary on the campus of Texas Christian University, a Disciples of Christ school in Fort Worth.

While at Brite, he found First Congregational UCC in Fort Worth, which called him in 2021 after he earned a master of divinity degree in 2020 to be pastor of church administration.

After three years, he entered the search process Dec. 29, 2023, a day after Community Congregational UCC in Pullman published their profile. His stepfather died in January 2023 and his father was diagnosed with cancer in February.

In a few months, Mike and the church found each other. He was called in May 2024 and started in June with what he describes as a “loving, caring group of justice-oriented” people.

“Brite helped me connect the dots that the UCC put words to about the call of the church being about justice for all, covenant, hospitality and welcoming everyone,” said Mike, pleased to serve Pullman Congregational UCC which shares his concern for justice and wellbeing for all.

The church is organized with teams responsible for justice and witness, congregational life, congregational care and shared ministries, functioning so they work as a whole through the council.

The church has also hired Megan Guido, a member who worked at the local hospital, as marketing coordinator to help spread word in the community what our church is doing.

One of the efforts in the past two years has been to collect loose offerings for different groups in the community and the Palouse area, realizing that most members gave to support the church with pledges.

Nonprofits that are designated for a month have a representative come the first Sunday to share about what they do, bringing to awareness that the church offers an opportunity to directly support the work. Usually, the offerings amount to $500 to $800, enough to make a difference for the group.

“It’s a justice moment in the worship service,” said Mike, “rather than having it be part of the budget and not seen.”

The website lists regular partners through which church volunteers put their faith into action and to which they designate offerings.

Those include food and housing action through Community Action Center, meals for homebound seniors through Meals on Wheels, crisis housing support through the Community Relief Fund, housing homeless families through Family Promise of the Palouse, supporting the LGBTQ+ community through Inland Oasis, housing until recently Cooper’s Legacy Thrift Shop, supporting statewide advocacy through Faith Action Network, maintaining equity through the Palouse Council on Racial Equity, empowering volunteers to send letters to encourage voters to vote through Vote Forward, promoting self-esteem through Pullman Child Welfare, FaVs news, and improving lives of people in Nicaragua through ASLA Foundation.

Several of those programs are at the church.

The church has long had a thrift store, which it sold to another group to run in the church, but Coopers Thrift Store recently sold its inventory to the church, which will sell the inventory and close the thrift store, because it does not have the volunteers to keep it open.

With Family Promise, CCUCC houses two to four families for one week four times a year, giving them a room, an evening meal and spending time with the families.

Mike is also working with Megan to update the website to have a connection page that presents ways people in  the community can connect with the church, such as the choir, coffee and conversation, movie nights, queer quest Dungeons & Dragons, family game night, environmental book club, game day parking, highway pickup, LGBTQ library, social events, church retreat at N-Sid-Sen and justice and witness events.

Art panels depict Palouse scenes and the faith of Pullman UCC church. Photo courtesy of Community Congregational UCC

Another way CCUCC communicates with neighbors is through its windows and wall panels outside the church. The panels are a mural with paintings of the Palouse, displaying the church’s values with the words Faith, Justice, Progressive, Inclusive and Caring, telling what the church is about.

Megan proposed the idea when she was outreach coordinator as a way to display the church’s values and support the arts.

The panels were designed by a local artist, Sarah Barnett, with the Palouse Arts Foundation. She is an instructor with the WSU fine arts department.

“The panels run the length of the sanctuary alternating with clear windows so people can see inside from the outside and look outside from the sanctuary, connecting people worshiping God inside with their call to worship God by acting in the community,” Mike said.

The Art for the Spirit mural project began in 2021 and was installed in 2023.

At the dedication, then interim pastor Gary Jewell spoke of churches presenting art and beauty in paintings, frescos, stained glass and statues, which typically “inspire as one stands within the structure.”

He made the point that these panels are outward, not inward focused.

“These panels are one way this church can share and celebrate beauty and wonder with everyone who passes by,” Gary continued, celebrating the beauty and wonder of the Palouse with everyone who passes by. 

“This is art for the public. It’s outward. It is witness. It is our way of saying that God’s beauty is something for everyone to celebrate, whether they do or do not attend a church,” Gary concluded.

“Anyone pulling in our parking lot can see this statement of what we are about and can see through the windows,” Mike said. “We care about faith, and we care about the community.”

Mike is still meeting people and learning about outreach to students on campus and work with the Interfaith Network.

“I am taking time to be present and listen to learn the concerns of the community,” he said.

For information, call 509-332-6411 or visit pullmanucc.org.

 

Pacific Northwest Conference United Church News © December 2024

 

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