wfn.org | UCC - the Rev. Robert Burt dies at 67

[powellb@ucc.org]

United Church of Christ
Barb Powell, press contact
216-736-2175
<powellb@ucc.org>
<http://www.ucc.org>

The Rev. Robert L. Burt, former United Church of Christ evangelism
executive, dies at 67

CLEVELAND -- The Rev. Robert L. Burt, 67, died Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2003, in
Miami. The former head of the United Church of Christ's Division of
Evangelism and Local Church Development had been ill with amyloidosis of
the kidney.

      Since 1998, Burt had been teaching minister at Plymouth

Congregational United Church of Christ in the Coconut Grove community of

Miami. In 2001, "Round Table Connections," a continuing education project

founded and directed by Burt for the revitalization of local church

pastors, received a $200,000 grant from the New York-based Henry Luce

Foundation.

      In addition to his work with Plymouth Congregational, in 1999 he

worked with the West Broward Project, a United Church new congregation

start now known as New Century

United Church of Christ in Cooper City, Fla. In 1997 and 1998, Burt was

teaching minister at Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ.

      From 1981 to 1996, Burt was a general secretary of the United Church

Board for Homeland Ministries, a predecessor body of the denomination's

Local Church Ministries. From

January 1986 to March 1996, he led the Division of Evangelism and Local

Church Development. The division was responsible for establishing new

churches in partnership with the

United Church of Christ's regional conferences. Its major emphases were on

evangelism programming, new and revisioned church development, local church

site and building loan services, and capital development services. Burt

also managed a $50-million Church Building Revolving Loan Fund, from which

new churches borrowed funds for site acquisition and building construction.

      Burt joined the staff of the national setting of the United Church of

Christ in 1968. From 1968 to 1980, he served in several capacities,

including youth ministries secretary, leadership development secretary and

mission strategies secretary. He was new church secretary from 1977 to

1980.  He worked in the denomination's New York offices and then relocated

to Cleveland when the United Church moved its national offices there in

1990.

      Ordained to the Christian ministry in the United Church of Christ in

1962, Burt was pastor of Second Congregational United Church of Christ in

Ashtabula, Ohio, from 1962 to 1966. He was associate minister of First

Congregational United Church of Christ in Madison, Wis., in 1966 and 1967.

He was one of the chief organizers of "Clergy and Laymen Concerned about

Viet Nam" in the Upper Midwest. Burt was director of Cleveland's Tremont

Churches Community Project from September 1967 to January 1968, a community

organizing program in Ohio's most rapidly changing community at the time.

      Burt was a published author, having contributed to several books,

periodicals, journals and Homeland Board publications. In 1990, he edited a

book for The Pilgrim Press featuring the

evangelism stories of 17 growing local churches in the United Church of

Christ.  The book, Good News in Growing Churches, was selected as "Book of

the Year" by the Religious Book Club. He also was editor of Affirming

Evangelism, a challenge to the denomination to reclaim its evangelical

vocation, and was founding editor of the UCC's Growingplans magazine.

      As part of his ministry, Burt taught leadership and church growth

courses at UCC-related Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre,

Mass., and Eden Theological Seminary in Webster Groves, Mo. He also led

several United Church of Christ "heritage seminars" in England, Holland,

Switzerland and Germany, and traveled as a United Church representative to

the former East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. He also was co-founder

of the Fellowship of UCC Architects

.

      Born in Tiffin, Ohio, in 1936, Burt graduated from Otterbein College

in Westerville, Ohio (1958), and Harvard University Divinity School in

Cambridge, Mass. (1961). He also had an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree

from Eden Theological Seminary.

      He is survived by his wife, Andrea; their two children, Thaddaeus,

11, and Maria, 5; two grown children, Geoffrey and Stephanie, from a

previous marriage; and three grandchildren.

      Memorial contributions can be made to the "Round Table Room and

Program Fund" of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, 3400

Devon Road, Miami, FL 33133.

      The 1.4-million-member United Church of Christ, with national offices

in Cleveland, is the 1957 union of the Congregational Christian Churches

and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.

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