National UCC president visits conference, listens to visions, hopes

In March, the United Church of Christ President and General Minister traveled to Spokane and Seattle to listen to members of UCC churches. The Rev. Geoffrey Black came to hear the hopes, dreams and visions of the church and to express appreciation for all who make churches vibrant and alive.

Geoffrey Black, center, gathers with folks from First Congregational UCC in Colville

He framed sessions by giving the statistics on the UCC, which has 1.5 million members in 5,000 congregations in 38 conferences with 400 associations that authorize and oversee ministers and churches. He recognized that the Pacific Northwest Conference is multi-state—Washington, Alaska and North Idaho—and serves as an association.

New York state, where he was conference minister before becoming the national leader, has nine associations.

The UCC’s 10,000 ministers include local church pastors, pastoral counselors, military chaplains, campus ministers, hospital chaplains and specialized ministers.  The UCC has seven seminaries and 12 UCC-related colleges. 

“We are a small denomination compared to 11 million United Methodists and 9 million Presbyterians,” Black said.  “We are a small, but vocal people and assertive in the public realm.  Our voice exceeds our numbers.  We are a leadership denomination, because our program stances help the whole church take stands.

“We were one of the first to deal with clergy sexual misconduct, providing discipline and training on boundary issues,” he said.  “Other churches resisted it at first and now have taken it seriously and are proactive.”

The 5,000 congregations are large, medium and small—with about 60 percent considered small, defined as having fewer than 100 members.

“Our churches cannot be stereotyped,” Black said.  “We have the image of being a progressive church, but our members cover the theological and political spectrum.

“We aspire to be a multicultural-multiracial, just-peace, open and affirming church, accessible to all,” he said, describing the UCC as he elicited hopes, dreams and visions for the UCC as it moves forward.

Some visions for UCC churches

• Attain a size so there is not concern about having enough people to do the jobs and enough money to do ministry. • Draw more young families. • Establish a more precise denominational identity. • Lighten up while respecting tradition. • See the bigger picture of trends. • State steps to attract the generation who have not been to church. • Develop web pages and use computers effectively. • Invite children of families not involved in church. • Support pastors to become bivocational because they cannot make a living wage serving a congregation of 22 members.  (Black said that is part of future continuing education plans and there is a grant already available for bi-vocational ministers through Parish Life and Leadership.) • Try things new to us, learning from what other UCC congregations are doing. • Offer a place for single young professionals to gather. • Be creative and respectful of different generations, backgrounds and races. • Use ingenuity to find what is relevant to young and old—not just on Sundays—like providing a place for people to come for coffee or tea and talk about what is meaningful. • Offer high school students classes so more than two in three can graduate from high school. • Work outside the church with people in the community.

Black interjected that the UCC effort to build its identity through the Stillspeaking initiative was expensive, with an initial investment of $300,000 that the UCC could not sustain.  Now it seeks to spread the message in other ways, such as sending out an ad to UCC members April 16 for them to spread virally—spreading from one person to another and another and another—through the internet and emails.  The UCC also plans to launch its new Stillspeaking magazine and will launch “Stillspeaking Voices” as a web resource to help UCC people learn to talk about the church and invite people in ways that are authentic to who we are.  It’s difficult for some to talk about church, so this is a way to help more become better ambassadors on the church and Christ.

Don Hill, who traveled with Black, took notes and photos to compile ideas, look at trends and share results with the Leadership Council.

“What I heard today in Spokane is in keeping with what I have heard from people in other parts of the country,” he said.

“I hear a general concern about the absence of young adults and about envisioning a church that is visible in the public sphere and more forthright in its commitments to justice,” he said.

Black knows some are anxious that the next generation be brought into the church and that the church does not abdicate its commitment to active engagement in justice concerns about the environment, prisons, poverty, unemployment, racism, homophobia and violence.  “I hear real concern for advancing civil rights, especially for gays and lesbians.

“The UCC has responsibility to advance that, but not to the exclusion of others,” he said.

Black added his concern that the rising cost of health care are a burden for congregations as it is for all institutions.

“We have come out strong in support of national health care,” he said.  “Anything short of that will undermine the viability of the institutions of this country, including the churches.  That’s why we have pressed hard on that issue.  Justice and Witness has worked the most intensively I have seen on that issue, because it is critical to our long term survival.”

The national setting offers a solid program to employees and clergy, but it’s expensive even with cost savings through the Pension Board.  Black said that like most others, the UCC does not offer open enrollment to people with pre-existing conditions.  That would increase health insurance costs 15 percent.

He says he struggles with that inconsistency in UCC policies while working for change in the broader society.  He clarified, too, that the Pension Boards does not invest in health insurance companies.

“Most major employers are behind health care reform,” he said. 

“People want to see us continue our justice concerns and are impressed with our consistency around the issues.  Many would like to see the UCC reflect a deeper theological and spiritual connection to our justice witness, to make it clear why we do what we do and why followers of Jesus are concerned about conditions,” he reported.

Black added that the ecumenical movement is alive and moving forward to closer relationships among the mainline Protestant family.  While there is less engagement with Evangelical Protestants, the UCC is in open dialogue with Catholics and Orthodox through the National Council of Churches.

He said that Churches Uniting in Christ is moving forward—www.cuicinfo.org—and the UCC has a knowledgeable, engaged ecumenical officer in Lydia Veliko.

“I am seeking my niche. I am concerned about, committed to and cherish our ecumenical heritage and accept leadership in this denomination with an ecumenical heart. I’m also aware that our ecumenical commitment is not just national. In most of our local churches, the ecumenical movement has a home.

“We are not so broken that we cannot be fixed nor are we so broke that we don’t have the resources we need to do that hard work,” said Black.

Copyright Pacific Northwest Conference News © April 2010