wfn.org | Worship at local UCC congregation will be featured on ABC Easter

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special

Feb. 14, 2000
Office of Communication
United Church of Christ
William Winslow, press contact
(212) 870-2137
<insloww@ucc.org>
On the web:  <http://www.ucc.org>

When the Rev. Laurinda Hafner accepted the position of senior minister at
Pilgrim Congregational UCC, her mother burst out crying.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

Any mother would have been concerned. Pilgrim Church was a run-down barn of
a building in a down at-the-heels section of Cleveland called Tremont. The
paint was peeling all over the place, and the organ had been busted for 20
years. The congregation had dwindled to a few dozen stalwart souls and had
had a part-time preacher for the past 10 years.

This Easter, Pilgrim UCC will be the featured Protestant church on ABC-TV.
(Check local listings for time in your area.) As many as 8 million
Americans in some 100 cities will see a gleaming church packed to the
rafters with nearly every one of its 400 members and neighborhood friends.
The TV audience will share in a spectacular service of choral music, jazz,
hand bells, theater, African drums and great preaching, all of it performed
by church members with nothing brought in from outside.

"It's an honor and a privilege to share the good news of Easter with a
national audience," says Hafner, who confessing that she is "humbled" by
the experience.

That is an understatement. The renaissance of Pilgrim Church has been a
truly cooperative venture with great leadership from congregation and
community. But the sparkplug right from the beginning has been the senior
pastor, a 
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=93type A=94 personality with unflagging enthusiasm and optimism who
once successfully managed her brother's first political race.

Her church is now one of the most eclectic of the denomination's 6,000
congregations. Any Sunday morning worship service may find a street per=
son
sitting next to a corporate lawyer or the president of the United Churc=
h of
Christ (the Rev. John H. Thomas is a member). Watch the offertory plate=
.
The hands that pass it along belong to African Americans, and those of
Anglo and Eastern European, Hispanic and Asian origins. They come for t=
he
music, the preaching, the fellowship, from ages nine to 90.

Hafner has built up Pilgrim in deed as well as word. It was the first
church in Cleveland to declare itself "open and affirming" -- welcoming=

people of all sexual orientations. It authored the resolution at the UC=
C
General Synod to close down the School of the Americas, a military
institution in Georgia that has been accused of training officers from
Latin America who are suspected of violating their citizens=92s civil r=
ights
after they return home.

The church is a beacon for neighborhood kids as a safe refugee after sc=
hool
and the only place many will eat a hot breakfast Sunday morning. And sh=
e
presided over a half million dollar capital gifts campaign for major
structural renovations.

So, is the church ready for prime-time TV? "You bet," says Hafner. "I h=
ave
no fear about our ability to represent mainline Protestantism," she say=
s,
pausing, "even if my husband keeps asking me if I=92ve got everything u=
nder
control."

Hafner admits that the hardest part is integrating all the different
elements of the service, but she=92s got lots of committees to help. Th=
ere
are the worship and hospitality committees; the esthetic committee whos=
e
job is to dress the church, and the people committee that is responsibl=
e
for filling the pews. That is a challenge, because the service will be
videotaped two Saturdays before Easter over the course of three hours. =
The
congregation has to stay the whole time.

"It's going to be a long morning," sighs Hafner, "but if I goof somewhe=
re
in the sermon, I=92ve got a second chance." And the payoff for all this=
 work?
"It would be nice if somebody who has left the church and is out there
watching us gets excited and comes back," Hafner says, "even to a UCC
church!"

The United Church of Christ, with national offices in Cleveland, has so=
me
1.4 million members and 6,000 congregations in the United States and Pu=
erto
Rico.  It was formed by the 1957 union of the Congregational Christian
Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.

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=

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