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General Synod Update from the UCC Web Site.

SYNOD VOTES BY BIG MARGIN FOR FULL COMMUNION WITH LUTHERAN CHURCH 

Also:
Delegates work in the streets.
Unease about human cloning.
Partnership with Samoan church.

Contact: Andy Lang UCC 
Office of Communication 
July 5, 1997 

COLUMBUS, Ohio - With only an estimated 10 votes in opposition, the
General Synod of the United Church of Christ tonight (July 5) voted to
declare full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America. 

Some 700 delegates and hundreds of visitors and observers rose after
the vote for a prolonged standing ovation. UCC President Paul Sherry
then led the Synod in a chorus of "Praise God from whom all blessings
flow." 

The United Church of Christ now joins its two Reformed partners - the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Reformed Church in America -
which voted by decisive margins in June to declare full communion with
the ELCA, America's largest Lutheran body. 

The ELCA votes on the plan during its Churchwide Assembly in August. 

The proposal for full communion is embodied in "The Formula of
Agreement." The agreement does not merge the churches, but establishes
a relationship in which members can celebrate the Eucharist together
and ministers can cross denominational lines - subject to the rules of
each church. Observers say the Formula will be little more than a
piece of paper, however, unless local congregations of the four
churches work together in mission, evangelism and service. 

During the floor discussion, the Rev. Frank Dietz of Cypress, Texas,
asked the delegates to "help us in this church to say a resounding
'Yes' so that tomorrow in pews and pulpits in Lutheran churches across
this land they will know we await their decision to walk with us
through this gate that leads to the future." Dietz is chair of the
UCC's Council on Ecumenism. 

"Surely, this is an historic moment," UCC President Paul H. Sherry
told delegates after the vote. "It is a moment of renewal and
celebration. It is a moment when we truly see our oneness in Christ
Jesus. As I look around this hall and think of the centuries of
separation, and I think of this coming together, I give thanks to
God." 

Standing on the stage with Sherry were representatives from the three
partner churches and the Rev. John Thomas, the UCC's ecumenical
officer. Delegates warmly applauded Thomas, who is widely credited for
years of patient work in Lutheran-Reformed negotiations. 

Tonight's decision was an emotional moment for many members of the
UCC, especially from "union churches" in Pennsylvania and other states
where Reformed and Lutheran congregations have coexisted since the
17th century. During the debates that led to the Synod vote, delegates
said again and again that the UCC must be faithful to its motto -
"That They May All Be One," Jesus' high priestly prayer for the unity
of the church. 

The UCC is the only Protestant church in the U.S. that has roots in
both the Reformed tradition of John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, and the
Lutheran tradition that owes its name to the first Reformer, Martin
Luther. One of the UCC's ancestors - the Evangelical Synod of the West
- was founded by Lutheran and Reformed immigrants from Germany. 

Lutheran and Reformed Christians, although they agree on fundamental
issues like justification by grace through faith, have lived apart for
more than 400 years. But in 1973 the Lutheran and Reformed Churches in
Europe declared full communion on the basis of the "Leuenberg
Agreement." In the U.S., Reformed and Lutheran churches have been
talking about unity for nearly 40 years. Tonight's vote is therefore
part of a worldwide movement to heal old wounds and bring
once-separated churches together. 

After the vote, the Rev. Doug Fromm of the Reformed Church in America
told delegates that "in the late 1980s, the Archbishop of Canterbury
said we were in the winter of ecumenism, and those were chilling
words. But I think by your vote you have shown that the ice is
melting, and the spring is coming, and we await the harvest." 

"I thank you for this action of affirmation of our oneness in Christ,"
said ELCA Bishop Stan Olson of Minnesota. "In August, we will be
praying prayers very much like your prayer of discernment which
concludes, 'give us the mind of Christ in whose name we gather and in
whose Body we are one. Amen.'" 

SYNOD DELEGATES PUT MUSCLES WHERE THEIR MINDS HAD BEEN 

Contact: Irwin Smallwood 
UCC Office of Communication 
July 5, 1997 

COLUMBUS, Ohio - It's pretty smelly out there," shouted the pretty
teenager as she hastened back to her post, cleanup rake in hand at the
parking site for the big, bright yellow trucks that pick up the solid
waste generated in this sprawling, bustling midwestern community. 

"Swing low, sweet chariot," sang the handsome young man from his perch
atop a ladder across town as he helped roof a house at a Habitat for
Humanity project. 

"Watch out with that paint brush," admonished a patient-but-concerned
middle-aged woman in another part of the city, where youngsters were
refurbishing a huge old residence that is a safe house for troubled
youth. 

"We really appreciate the help - everybody is understaffed these
days," said the young woman in charge of the Poison Control Center, as
two dozen helped pack informational kits to be used in their work. 

It was Synod Service Day for the United Church of Christ family
gathered here for the church's 21st General Synod. Between 150 and 200
of the delegates and visitors - old and young, short and tall, limping
and lively - laid down their notebooks, wiped resolutions and issues
from their brains and spent the afternoon putting their muscles and
energy where their minds and mouths had been. 

Synod Service Day originated spontaneously as a reaction to the
flooding in St. Louis four years ago during General Synod 19. It
continued in Oakland two years ago and now has become a regular
fixture. Susan Sanders, minister for volunteer services with the
United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, and BHM summer intern
Laura Slocum of Oberlin, Ohio, put together this year's projects - six
of them at eight different locations. 

It was an impressive sight as the scores of volunteers grabbed box
lunches, munched red apples, clasped water bottles and piled onto the
buses that took them into the field to experience service first hand. 

Images: . . . of Sophia DeWitt, a 22-year-old professional woman from
Berkeley, Calif., wheel-chair assisted but hard at work at the Poison
Control Center of Central Ohio, where 72,000 frantic calls a year come
in seeking help - most of them related to children. 

At the next table, pasting labels to brochures on the hazards of
household materials, Jason Ollison of New York City looked up from his
work long enough to say that he volunteered for this assignment
"because I figured I could help out and learn something important at
the same time." He's an 18-year-old student at Georgetown University
in Washington, D.C. 

Across the room, 75-year-old Pat Seibold of Spaceland, Ill.,
population 600, said she was there doing what she's been doing for the
dozen years since she retired from teaching high school. "It's in my
blood now," she said of her volunteering career. She's been to India,
Turkey and Zimbabwe, among other places, as a member of work teams
from the Illinois Conference. 

Images: . . . of the Rev. David Biebighauser, 56, a bit bald but
energetic, and pastor of First Congregational UCC in Watertown, S.D.
"I wanted to do something physical," he said, and he got his wish at
Ronald McDonald House, across the street from a huge children's
hospital. He and a dozen or more colleagues were busy cleaning the
kitchens and bathrooms, inventorying the rooms and doing other cleanup
chores at the 30-room facility for families of youngsters being
treated in the nearby hospital. 

Images: . . . of Ralph and Christina Sims of Lansing, Mich. She's a
teenager just heading to college and a delegate from the Michigan
Conference. He's her proud dad who came along to experience Synod for
the first time. They were at the Morse Station of the Columbus
Cleaning Community, helping spruce up the huge parking lot where
garbage pickup trucks are parked at night. 

"We thought it would be fun, and it was," they said, despite the odor
of the debris that spills out of the trucks as they are brought to
their resting place at night. 

Images: . . . of the Rev. Arwin Klemme, 72, a retired pastor from
Union, Mo., near St. Louis, and his wife Norma, 65, working
side-by-side at one of two Habitat houses. They broke into the
volunteer business big time after the St. Louis floods of '93, worked
on a housing project in East St. Louis and liked it so much "this
sounded like a good idea." 

Some 45 UCC volunteers were helping put on roofing, siding and outside
trim on two side-by-side houses that were nearing the closed-in stage.

Images: . . . of Gene Ayala, 25, of Manchester, Conn., who is
attending Synod as a participant in the People of Color gathering for
youth and young adults. He and his peers were hard at work at an old,
rundown mansion known as Huckleberry House, mostly painting the bunk
beds and doing general cleanup work at the safe house for runaways and
other troubled young people. 

Ayala, whose father is pastor of New Hope Christian UCC in Manchester,
recently received his master's degree from the University of
Connecticut and will begin work next fall as a high school counselor
in East Hartford. He chose the Huck House project because "I was
interested in seeing first hand how a youth shelter like this
operates, because I will be dealing with a lot of kids like these in
the years to come." 

Images: . . . of Raymond Reid, 21, who's also here for the People of
Color gathering, helping clean up an old furniture warehouse that now
houses The Open Shelter, the largest homeless refuge in Ohio. A
student at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, N.C.,
Reid was there to "do community service" that has become second nature
to him working at Greensboro's Urban Ministry community kitchen. He
was helping reorganize the Open Shelter's food pantry. 

Images: . . . of tired-and-hungry volunteers making their way back to
hotels as the sun sank low in the city's western horizon, their faces
reflecting the satisfaction of a day of service none is likely to
forget anytime soon. 

QUOTES OF THE DAY:

"We are called to name the barriers that close people out. We are to
remove the steps and install ramps, install doors that are wide and
accessible." The Rev. Rosemary McCombs Maxey, Westminster, Md.,
likening the challenges of American Indians and people with
disabilities in the church. 

"Our [UCC] Constitution is not written in stone by the hand of God."
-- Lisa Weida, delegate from Emmaus, Pa., in a hearing on proposed
amendments for the restructure of national agencies. 

"God's a lot less wordy." 
-- The Rev. Talitha Arnold, Santa Fe, N.M., agreeing with Weida. 

"Go right ahead and speak. There's no limitation. Bedtime is at 11." 
-- The Rev. David Dean, Synod moderator, inviting testimony from a
bioethicist during Saturday night's business session. 

OTHER SYNOD ACTIONS:

In other actions at its Saturday-evening business session, the Synod: 

Said it was uneasy with the cloning of humans and other mammals, but
stopped short of taking a position and called on national UCC agencies
to develop a proposed "policy statement and proposal for action" for
the 1999 Synod. Tonight's resolution, which passed overwhelmingly,
raised reservations about human cloning but also said a ban on public
funding of human cloning research would only "serve to reduce public
discussion on the ethics of such research, because it would only then
be carried out in private laboratories." It also said the cloning of
and research on mammals other than humans "may be morally and
theologically permissible, provided that animals be treated humanely
and that needless suffering is avoided," but also said such cloning
"raises new concerns about a diminishing respect for these animals." 

Recommended that the UCC work toward partnership with yet another
body - the 22,000-member Congregational Christian Church in Samoa.
Such a partnership would culminate relations that date back to World
War II. Many Samoan church members left the U.S. possession after the
war to live in Hawaii and North America and established congregations
related to both church bodies. There are 25 Samoan congregations in
California, Utah and Washington, some related to the UCC. The Synod
also received a 1996 action by the General Assembly of the
Congregational Christian Church in Samoa "approving a relationship
with the United Church of Christ as mutual partners in God's mission."
If achieved, the partnership would involve sharing ministry resources,
recognition of ministries, cultural and other forms of exchange and
shared commitments to justice and peace. 

Among other activities alongside the General Synod: 

Two outstanding woman ministers were honored at a special luncheon.
The Rev. Barbara M. DeSouza and the Rev. Rosemary McCombs Maxey are
winners of the 1997 Antoinette Brown Award, named for the first woman
ordained to the Christian ministry in the United States, by one of the
UCC's predecessor churches in 1853. DeSouza, a missionary, addressed
the gathering by phone from Brazil. Maxey, pastor of Mount Tabor UCC,
Rocky Ridge, Md., spoke of the joys and difficulties of being a woman
in ministry and of being an American Indian in the church and in U.S.
society. 

Reporters, writers and editors contributing to this news update were
Laurie Bartels, Michelle Carter, Hans Holznagel, Tim Kershner, Andy
Lang, Irwin Smallwood, Clifford L. Willis and William C. Winslow.
Thanks also to volunteers who helped with this edition: Lucy Brady,
Alison Bruton, Beng Seng Chan, Aladrian Crowder, Brandi Eney, Derek
Fiddler, Rosemary McCombs Maxey, Truman McCombs Maxey, Virginia
Michaels, Terrell Smith and Kelly Whitman. 

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