William B. Rolland

Charles Cornelius Anker

My name is Bill Rolland and as minister at the Church in the Forest it is my delight to welcome you. Let me tell you about myself and how I came to be in this great church. I would also like to take a few minutes to tell you about what is important to me as a minister.
Grounding in what is important in ministry comes from my earliest recollection of church life, and worship. As a pre-teen I began attending Sunday school across the street in a small church in Dunfermline, Scotland. It was there that they cared for my young spirit and mind. These people went out of their way to create an atmosphere of welcome, acceptance and love for me. This has become a hallmark and a standard by which I judge my ministry and the work of the church I serve to this day.
I also had the privilege of listening to some of the best preaching in Scotland. I sat under William Barclay in Glasgow and met James S. Stewart of Edinburgh. These experiences impressed upon me both the importance of the proclamation of the word, and the belief that worship should be expressed with dignity, warmth, beauty and joy. As any preacher, I am called to speak what God has spoken to me through scriptures and life. I feel the words that I speak, and hope to preach in a way that enables people to feel once more their relationship with God.
My ministry began in Falkirk, Scotland, a city in the very heart of the industrial Forth/Clyde valley. This was a new development church with all the difficulties attending such a venture. I had the privilege of seeing good growth there so that before I left there we offered a Vacation Bible School in the summer, where three hundred children attended, and a second mission was started in a nearby village.
After three years in Falkirk I came to the U.S.A. and completed the Master of Divinity degree in Kansas City. And In 1971 changed continents again and returned to Manchester, England where I assumed a position as a professor of New Testament and Practical Theology in the theological college. Later moving into the area of administration. After ten years in the "Ivory Tower," I began to miss the life of the local church. In order to put to the test what I was teaching in class, I took a part time volunteer position as pastor of a run down and dying church in one of the toughest parts of greater Manchester. With the assistance of two of my ministerial students who became part time Associates, we helped he church grow to where the congregation could move back into their beautifully renovated building, its sanctuary seating 500. It became a vibrant and thriving congregation and one that I will never forget.
It was time to move again and I chose to pursue doctoral studies, in Minneapolis, specializing in the area of Thanatology, (the understanding and assisting of people going through grief). This was one of the most enlightening experiences of my life. At that same time I was involved in Clinical Pastoral Education at Abbott-Northwest Hospital in the Twin Cities. In the early eighties I became an associate pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis, and it was here that I found my Scottish home in America.
Westminster Presbyterian Church is a 3,000 member church in the heart of the city with the city at its heart. Nine wonderful years were spent there. As associate I dealt with staff relations and development, outreach, new members, public relations, and worked with the Town Hall Forum, a monthly series dealing with key issues in ethical perspective. The Town Hall Forums had an audience from the community of 2,000 and was carried live on Public radio and television. Invited speakers, included Elie Weisel, former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, Kurt Valdheim, and poet, Maya Angelou, along with many others. It is a ministry which still functions very successfully today.
In 1990 1 accepted the call to be senior pastor and head of staff at Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church in California, where I was able to establish an endowment program for the future of the church. In the fall of 1997 the opportunity arose to take a position at the University of St. Andrews as a Visiting Scholar. As a family we agreed that this was the right direction to take. That was to be a time of academic and spiritual growth, allowing me the time to prepare myself for future ministry. In August of 1998 I accepted the position of minister at Church in the Forest and have loved every minute of it.
Some viewpoints, which are important to me, are as follows:
I believe that for true leadership to take place there must be five components.
• The first is trust. Open communication is vital to building trust.
• A leader must have a vision that he or she can articulate, so that it is brought into focus for others, who help it become a shared vision. Yet, having a vision does not necessarily mean that the specifics of the road to be traveled are known. A wise leader will respect the gifts and personalities of the team to accomplish the vision.
• Collegiality is another component of the modem leader. I believe that listening in the context of consensus, working as a team, and supporting each other to successfully use individual strengths will help us accomplish the task together.
• A leader must lead with clarity. This means that a leader will articulate clear direction, and specific needs, never loosing sight of the over-arching message of the vision.
• Another basic quality of leadership is authenticity. Colleagues and members must sense "the real" in the leader, including the hurts and highs of humanity, or the message of Christ's disciples will not ring true for them.

True leadership then, must be strong without being dictatorial, compassionate without being uncertain, and can only take place where there is a high degree of trust and respect.
What I believe about God:
God is a God of grace and acceptance, and surprises us with the openness shown through the work and ministry of Christ. Often the teaching of Jesus upsets the order of things, allowing the love of Christ to reach where we least expect it. God is a God who loves with an everlasting love and can turn the darkness of our wrong into the brilliant light of a new day. That love is expressed through the covenant community and when present causes the church to become the authentic presence of the love of God in the world. It is not by accident that what we have in the teachings of the Christian Testament centers in issues such as, acceptance and openness to the marginalized, the displaced, and the needy society. Worship of God is the chief end of humanity. It calls for the best we can offer, while recognizing that we as human beings fall short. We are strengthened in worship by God's spirit to be the people of God in the everyday world.
I come to the task, whatever it is: Weddings ceremony, hospital calling, sermon preparation, or church administration, with the sense that I can be who I am because of whose I am.
I enjoy and participate in several community organizations, including Rotary, the St. Andrews Society (of which I have been chaplain, and the Clan Sinclair). For many years I have been the Master of Ceremonies at the Macalester College Scottish Highland Games, in St. Paul, Minnesota. I am a collector of clocks and other antiques. I enjoy philately, golf, gardening and working on my 1960 Morris Minor convertible.
My family consists of three great children. Heather, who is married to Harley, lives in Marysville, California. Elisa teaches school in Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota. Billy is a graduate of Stevenson School and is in his fourth year at Davis.

Since there were few Reformed Churches in California, through the good graces of his friend, Dr. Paul Woudenberg, he was received into the Methodist denomination serving as an associate at St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Oxnard and then as associate at the 2,200 member Methodist Church in Santa Monica where Paul was the senior pastor. Charles continued there for a year after Paul left to become the pastor of The Church of the Wayfarer in Carmel. Charles then joined Paul there the following year and they worked together for nine years. Charles and Barbara’s son, Christian, was stricken and died shortly after their arrival. Upon Paul’s retirement and move to The Robert Louis Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, Charles was appointed senior pastor at The Wayfarer. His wife, Barbara, died towards the end of his ministry there. Upon retirement, he filled interim pastor positions in Santa Clara and the Central Valley of California (Lindsay). At the end of his pastorate in Lindsay, he married Alida (Ada) Schalkers and joined Dr. Bill Rolland at the Church in the Forest where he serves as an associate.