Don’t put a period where God puts a comma, God is still speaking.
Our faith is over 2,000 years old. Our thinking is not.
Church in the Cliff recently voted to explore affiliation with the United Church of Christ (UCC). In addition to being progressive theologically and open and affirming of all people regardless of sexual orientation, UCC seems to be interested in new ways of doing and being church. And they have the coolest ad campaign, as indicated by their slogans above.
Please check out their most recent 90 second video message on religion with relevance.
I’ll admit it, it made me cry. It is beautiful and upbeat, yet not cheesy. It reconnected me to my own hunger to be part of a church that listens for God and loves people radically in real time– in this life, this very moment.
Some people in the Emergent conversation, which we will talk more about next week, would likely suggest that we are crazy to consider aligning with an existing denomination when many emergent communities are trying to shed old identities.
They may be right. But I kind of like the idea of being aligned with more than one denomination ala a relational location somewhere in the middle of Alliance of Baptist, UMC, and UCC. That seems like a gloriously awkward intersection, and we do well with awkward.
We are already affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists, as we talked about last week. And I am appointed by the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church to serve in an extension ministry to an ecumenical and emergent context. And In addition to these Baptist and Methodist connections, it is clear from this summer that we bring stories from a variety of denominations and backgrounds.
Consequently it kind of makes sense that we might benefit by being part of another like minded network like UCC. It also opens up another ordination path and job curcuit for our seminarians. Indeed Nancy Allison, the totally fabulous founder of Citychurch/Church in the Cliff, is now ordained by the UCC. (Please check out her current ministry as the lead pastor of Holy Covenant United Church of Christ.)
These are good things to pray about and to consider for our future. Join us tonight for some of Paul’s famous curry and another round of identity conversations as we talk more about the UCC.
peace to you this hot, hot day
Courtney
community meal tonight at 108 S. Rosemont Dallas, 6:30pm. Please bring drinks and dessert to share.
