Richard Sales

Richard Winton Sales is a retired clergyman of the United Church of Christ denomination. He served as pastor of Pilgrim Congregational Church (now Pilgrim Church) from 1988 to 1997.

Sales was born in Syracuse, New York and grew up in New Jersey in the Dutch Reformed tradition. He attended Oberlin College in Ohio and the University of Chicago Divinity School; later, he would complete doctoral courses at Chicago Theological Seminary (unrelated to the UC Divinity School). In 1956, the Congregational Christian Churches (predecessor of the current UCC) ordained him to a pastorate in Middletown, Connecticut, where he stayed for one year.

Afterwards, he became a missionary for the Congregational Christian/UCC foreign missions board in South Africa, specializing in developing indigenous theological-education programs to train pastors. The government of South Africa, likely because of the UCC's public position opposing apartheid, denied Sales reentry after a furlough in 1970; thus, he moved to nearby Botswana and developed programs for the Congregational churches in that country. He would still later do the same thing in Zambia. He formally concluded his missionary activities in 1985, with the exception of a visit to the Marshall Islands on behalf of the foreign missions board two years later. While in Africa, Sales' first wife died; he married her sister, the former Nancy Magorian, to whom he remains married today.

Upon his permanent return to the U.S., Sales settled in Atlanta to serve as a supply pastor for churches in the UCC's Southeast Conference. He first came to Pilgrim Church on an interim basis in the summer of 1987, following an acrimonious congregational division over the outgoing pastor's homosexuality. He stayed six months at Pilgrim before moving to another interim pastorate in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After he ended his service in Chattanooga, members of Pilgrim Church's search committee approached him about becoming pastor on a permanent basis. He agreed to do so.

Inheriting a church with a greatly decimated membership from that of ten or so years earlier, Sales worked diligently to increase members' knowledge of and support for UCC mission work and local ministries. For the first time, people from demographic groups other than an upper-middle-income, business-oriented clientele began participating in, and joining, the church. This group steered the congregation theologically toward a non-orthodox orientation and ethically toward various social justice causes. One notable innovation, controversial in other places, carried out during the Sales pastorate was the use of "inclusive language" in worship, referring to God in terms other than solely masculine ones. He became the moderator (president) of the Southeast Conference while pastor as well.

By the time of Sales' resignation in September 1997, Pilgrim Church had progressed considerably from a situation of uncertainty to a congregation with a distinctive identity and appeal to the Birmingham area's liberal-minded white population. Immediately after leaving Pilgrim Church, he began work in developing for the Southeast Conference a lay theological education program, akin to those he formulated in Africa, to be used in its churches, titled Theology Among the People (TAP). Sales joined the Conference's staff and taught several courses throughout Alabama and Georgia, up until his retirement in 2003.

In more recent times, Sales has worked with the Alabama-Northwest Florida Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to develop an identical program for that denomination's congregations, titled "People Energized, Prepared, and Productive." The Disciples have closely related to the UCC in interdenominational matters for several decades.

Sales and wife Nancy, an adult education instructor, have three children and several grandchildren. They make their home in Birmingham and participate in the activities of both First Congregational Christian Church and Beloved Community Church.

References

• bulletin, Trinity Congregational Church, Athens, Ala., September 2, 2007.
• Feazel, Frances T. (2003) A History of the Pilgrim Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, 1903-2003. self-published by the church.