Our church has a rich history of being a teaching church for students at Yale Divinity School. During the 1970’s and 80’s, we served as a field education site for a number YDS students, who served our church primarily in the area of youth ministry. Sometime during the 80’s, we stopped supervising students. Most people attribute this to a lack of funding. In early 2002, Gordon Ellis was approached by 3 different people on 3 different occasions, none of whom knew each other, asking us to serve as a teaching church for them. All of them had heard about this wonderful church and were excited to learn from us. John Arens, a former Roman Catholic priest wishing to acquire ministerial standing in our United Church of Christ, was the first. Carol Ann Celella was the second. She had done seminary training at YDS in the 1980’s, but had chosen not to be ordained at that time. Now Carol Ann wanted to pursue ordination and needed a training site. Finally, Linda Fernandes-Bailey, a current student at YDS, asked us to offer her the field education setting she needed for her work at Yale. The Deacons accepted the teaching church challenge, and Gordon, who had supervised students from Andover Newton Theological School at his last church, agreed to supervise them. All 3 were commissioned on Rally Day 2002 at YMCA Camp Sloper. They have all served our church well and grown in ministry tremendously. John now has his own church in Litchfield, Linda has joined our staff as our newest Associate Minister, and Carol Ann has one more semester of Clinical Pastoral Education at UCONN Health Center before applying for ordination. As funds permit, Gordon hopes to continue our teaching church legacy and supervise other students from YDS in the near future.