wfn.org | UCC General Synod 24 ? Evangelism is living on the growing edge

[powellb@ucc.org]

UCC Newsroom, Minneapolis
Andrew Lang, reporter
<newsroom@ucc.org>
<http://www.ucc.org>

Thursday, July 10, 2003

MINNEAPOLIS -- "Evangelism in our state used to be waiting for the next
boatload of Germans to arrive," the Rev. Dale Parson of Kansas City, Mo.,
said during one session at the UCC's Evangelism Event this week, which
opened Tuesday and will continue to meet through Sunday.

"Of course, we treasure the German ethnic heritage in our Conference,"
Parson said. "But now the growth curve is in diversity." Of the five new
congregations in western Missouri, he said, two were founded by Pacific
Islanders, one by sexual minorities, one is African American, and one is
Hispanic.

The event -- "It's All About Evangelism" -- is the first conference of new
and renewing congregations in the United Church of Christ. Organized by the
Evangelism Ministry Team of Local Church Ministries, it has drawn several
hundred lay leaders, church planters and pastors.

"You live at the edge," UCC General Minister and President John Thomas told
the gathering. "The 'growing edge' where the church meets a culture at once
indifferent, resistant, and curious. The 'cutting edge' where theology and
worship are shaped in new and daring ways for engaging persons who have
never met Jesus or who have only known a version of the Gospel that has
damaged them. And also at times 'on the edge'?institutionally, financially,
personally.

"The edge is exciting, but it is also a place of deep vulnerability, and
many of you know this intimately."

The UCC's "growing edge" is Bible-believing, Christ-centered, and generous
in its embrace. It has the energy of traditional evangelicalism but is wide
open to communities -- including the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
minority -- not wanted by other churches. It experiments with the latest
technology but knows that building personal relationships is the key to
church growth. It gathers in homes, shopping malls, schools, borrowed
church buildings and sprawling new sanctuaries. One congregation grew in
six years from two to 250 members. Another -- Victory Church in Stone
Mountain, Ga. -- can accommodate half of its 6,000 members in one service.

Culture of spiritual freedom

Some are older congregations that joined the UCC because here they
discovered a culture of spiritual freedom. Glade Baptist Church in
Blacksburg, Va., severed its ties with the Southern Baptist Convention
along with other moderate evangelical congregations alienated by the
denomination's fundamentalist leadership. "We reached the conclusion that
the church's leadership had abandoned fundamental Baptist principles --
local church autonomy, religious liberty and the priesthood of all
believers," says Judy Sewell, a lay leader in the congregation. "But we
found these values in the UCC. It was a good fit."

Glade is now affiliated with both the UCC and the Alliance of Baptists -- a
movement of progressive congregations in the Southern Baptist tradition. (A
dialogue between the Alliance and the UCC is exploring the possibility of a
closer ecumenical partnership.) "At its best, the Baptist tradition teaches
that we are closest to Christ when we can invite everyone to the table,"
says Glade's pastor, the Rev. Kelly Sisson. "We found that commitment to
inclusivity in the UCC."

Inclusivity also means that Association and Conference staff are ready to
respond quickly when a new congregation approaches the UCC with questions
about affiliation. One of the inquiring pastors visiting Minneapolis is
Newman Artcher from Ghana, who leads a new congregation in Washington,
D.C., for immigrants who speak the Ewe language of Ghana, Togo and Benin.
He approached another mainline Protestant denomination but was told they
couldn't begin to work with his church for two or three years. "We turned
to the UCC's Potomac Association because we are an independent church, and
the UCC respects independent churches," he said. "The Association is
willing to give us the guidance and help with leadership development that
we need."