We have voted to stay

Some of you may have been following our church's conversations and deliberation about whether to stay in our building and invest or move and share space with another congregation.  We asked these questions not out of desperation but to make an intentional choice about how to spend our resources - recognizing the religious world has changed and is changing rapidly around all mainline churches.

In the end, a majority of the congregation voted to remain in our building and to be more intentional about using our building as an asset to the community - a base from which to do mission.  We also value the 32 year relationship with Temple Micah.  Staying means investing - fixing deferred maintenance and evaluating our worship space for the 21st century.

Come be our guest and learn more about the exciting things happening in ministry here.  Welcome!

Is Someone Else Pulling Your Strings?

“There is something in every one of you

that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself.

It is the only true guide you will ever have.

And if you cannot hear it,

you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings

that somebody else pulls.”

-Howard Thurman

Be Alive Until You Are Not

The singular and cheerful life

of any flower

in anyone’s garden

or any still unowned field–

if there are any –

catches me

by the heart,

by its color,

by its obedience

to the holiest of laws:

be alive

until you are not.

-from “The Singular and Cheerful Life,” by Mary Oliver

Sunday, September 11th

We will join six other congregations in not having our own Sunday morning service on September 11th. We will gather as an interfaith community - Christian, Jewish, Muslim - at Montview Presbyterian Church at 1980 Dahlia Street at 10 am. We all felt this fit better the hopes and aspirations of our faith traditions than to sit separately from one another worshiping the same God. Please join us.

The Real Machiavelli Quote

Niccolo Machiavelli

The misquote: "The ends justify the means."

The actual quote "One must consider the final result."

What a difference!

This has me tripping!

So, I'm reading tons of material to prepare to teach UCC History at Iliff. Not only am I reading current UCC materials, but also books from the perspective of those who either did not join the UCC at the merger or who have left since.

In a book by one such group, The First 50 years of the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference, in the section about why churches have left the UCC recently, my name appears! There is a paragraph that quotes an article in the Cleveland newspaper about my ordination in 1993. This is one of the reasons given by a church in Ohio that they left the UCC!

This is a relatively obscure book to anyone outside that particular denomination. To see my name was a trip.

Principles of the Christian Churches - predecesors of the UCC

From the The YEAR-BOOK OF THE CONGREGATIONAL AND CHRISTIAN CHURCHES in 1930:

THE PRINCIPLES AND ORGANIZATION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
(for those studying our UCC history, this is the group that joined in union with the Congregational Churches in 1931)

The following Principles are generally accepted and proclaimed by the
Christian churches. There is no uniform phrasing of them, however.

PRINCIPLES

I. Christ the only Head of the Church.
II. Christian a sufficient name for the followers of Christ.
III. Christian character the only basis or test of fellowship and membership.
IV. The Holy Scriptures our only creed.
V. Individual interpretation of the scriptures, the privilege and duty of
every believer.
VI. The union of all the followers of Christ.

These six Principles have frequently been summed up in this one basic
principle :

"The Church of Christ is One; it embraces all those who have been accepted
of Christ as his real disciples; and, in its whole and in its parts, it should be so
organized, named, and governed as to include all and exclude none of those
whom Christ has so accepted."