This morning we met in our community groups. It was a time of prayer and worship as well as a time to get to know one another and engage in dialogue about the UCC and it's five historic commitments: being a united and uniting church, being a multiracial and multicultural church, being accessible to all, being open and affirming, and being a peace and justice church. We looked at how God is shining through us in these ways as well as when the light has grown dim. We reflected on the passage from Matthew 5: 14-16, a portion of Jesus' teachings from the Sermon on the Mount.
All in all it was an engaging and productive time for us to come together. I appreciated the opportunity and enjoyed getting to know those around me. We shared our personal stories as well as the stories from our local churches.
We received a draft of a message to the churches, crafted by the collegium of the UCC. It draws upon experiences of local congregations of the United Church of Christ after reflecting on the resource Shine, God's People. We were asked to comment on what we thought of the document and list any changes we might make. One of the changes that we came up with is incorporating the idea that there are still many individuals and congregations that have difficulty with the idea of being Open and Affirming; recognizing that those people are still hurt is an important step. We also felt that there was too little about youth and it seemed too much like an afterthought, we (the youth) are not only the future of the church but also part of the present.
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The list of "five" historic commitments was selected arbitrarily by a National Leadership. There has never been a resolution that named these five. You have to wonder why these five, especially ONA were chosen out of all the resolutions... and not say, "Mutual respect"...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ucc.org/assets/pdfs/MUTUAL-RESPECT-WITHIN-THE-FAITH-COMMUNITY.pdf
...or "Ecumenicity and conciliar fellowship"
http://www.ucc.org/assets/pdfs/73-theostatement.pdf
I am not going to open up a divisive debate here, but not everyone in the UCC would agree on those five as the primary commitments of the UCC.
This is one of the reasons some conservatives have asked that an explicit extravagent welcome be extended to the non-progressive folks (ECOTs) like myself who consider themselves distinctively UCC but not in the way the "branding efforts" would like to convey.
btw, what is the status of "Reaffirming our faith to retain our churches"
http://www.ucc.org/assets/pdfs/gs26-9.pdf
-RT
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