On Sunday - Past Sermon
Date: June 26, 2005
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.
Lesson: John 17:20-26
A question I am sometimes asked by outside groups using our church, or engaged couples who come to inquire about a wedding here is: "You're not part of a denomination, are you?" Actually, it is more of a declaration—or an assumption—on their part than it is a question. They assume that because we are the only Protestant church in the Belmont Shore community, we are a "community" church and nothing more.
I explain that no, actually we are part of a denomination, the United Church of Christ. When they respond with a vacant look in their eyes, I explain that the UCC is a mainline Protestant denomination, like the Methodists, Presbyterians and Lutherans. That said, I've probably used three words they are not familiar with: mainline, Protestant, and denomination. The word "mainline" is very much from the middle of the past century—a 1940s through ‘60s word. No one knows mainline any more. Nor do younger people understand denominations, nor the word Protestant. They broadly refer to Christians and Catholics, as if Roman Catholics are not Christians. Most new churches, especially the mega churches which get a lot of press but really comprise a very small segment of American churches, downplay their denominational connections. You have to do quite a bit of sleuthing to ascertain their background, and quite often it is a tenuous connection, as those churches are commonly built around the personality of the founding pastor.
Bay Shore Congregational Church—our official name by which we were incorporated eighty years ago Friday, on June 24, 1925—has always been associated with a denomination. In the summer of 1924, as the streets were being laid out in Belmont Shore and the lots developed, the Congregational Conference in Los Angeles sent a seminary student from Harvard to conduct summer worship services in the tract office at the corner of Second Street and Bayshore Avenue. They were well-enough attended that he reported at the end of that summer that there was sufficient interest to develop a Congregational Church in this area, First Congregational Church being the great distance of three-and-a-half miles away. Yet this was an era when most people walked to church.
Congregational roots in this country go back to the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620. The Separatists had broken off from the Church of England, established by King Henry VIII in the 16th century as a break-off from the Roman Catholic Church. That had to do with the Catholic Church not sanctioning his dispatch of various wives, so he created his own church, of which the reigning monarch of England remains the titular head.
The Separatists dwelt in Holland for a period of time, but became frustrated when their children picked up Dutch customs and language. They returned briefly to England before setting sail aboard the Mayflower for the New World. Most of you are familiar with their arrival here, and their subsequent celebration of Thanksgiving, which for us each November has a particular tie to these early Congregationalists in America.
The Congregational Church became well established—if not the dominant religious group—throughout New England. Today, every little town in Massachusetts and Connecticut has at least one Congregational Church. The denomination has always been interested in higher education, and was responsible for founding Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Pomona College here in California.
Fast-forward to the middle of the last century. A number of mergers of denominations unites the great traditions of the Protestant Reformation—Lutheran, Calvinist and Congregational. All of these were brought to America by Protestants fleeing religious persecution in Europe, and a fervent desire to worship freely in a free land. The Congregational Churches and the Christian Churches united in 1931 to form the Congregational Christian Churches, stressing congregational freedom and a continuing reformation. At the same time, the German Reformed Church of the U.S. and the Evangelical Synod in North America united in 1934 to form the Evangelical and Reformed Church, stressing liberty of conscience, authority of the Scriptures and their common liberal German Protestant heritage.
Not long afterwards, conversations were started to unite these two new denominations into one united church. Each had their differences. Whole books have been written about the court battles that ensued in the 1940s and ‘50s. Finally, forty-eight years ago yesterday, on June 25, 1957, the uniting synod in Cleveland, Ohio voted to create the United Church of Christ.
There were few Evangelical and Reformed Churches here on the West coast—they were heavily concentrated in Pennsylvania and Ohio—but because of their style of church government—or polity, as it is called—all had to adopt the United Church of Christ name. St. Stephen's Evangelical and Reformed Church became St. Stephen's United Church of Christ; First E&R Church became First United Church of Christ.
However, and this is especially important for each of you here this morning to remember, every Congregational Church was and remains today autonomous. Each Congregational Church had an opportunity to vote. It took several years in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. A reading of Bay Shore's Carillons from 1957 through 1959 made note of that uniting synod in June 1957, and by fall of that year this congregation was in conversation with other former E&R churches to get to know them, and how their faith and practices were similar or might differ before this congregation voted to join the newly-formed United Church of Christ. Unlike E&R churches which were all declared now to be United Churches of Christ, every Congregational Church—because of their historical autonomy of the local congregation and not being beholden to pronouncements from any higher ecclesiastical body—could vote yes to the merger, no to the merger, or not to vote at this time. United Church of Christ Yearbooks list UCC churches, Schedule I churches which have not voted or voted to abstain at this time, and Schedule II churches which voted not to be part of the UCC. First Congregational Church, Los Angeles voted no and remains a continuing Congregational church. As recently as 2005, First Congregational Church of Santa Ana voted to join the United Church of Christ.
Again, while all E&R churches were declared to be UCC and had their names automatically changed, the same was not true for churches of the Congregational persuasion. Almost every one clung to the word Congregational in their name. I served the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Corning, New York. I grew up in Community Congregational United Church of Christ in Los Alamitos. Our neighboring church downtown, from which some of you came, is known as First Congregational Church, and they add United Church of Christ under their name, as we do. The Los Altos United Church of Christ was among the first to adopt the UCC name in full, but interestingly enough, for further definition, their church sign and letterhead have the word "Congregational" under United Church of Christ, instead of the other way around.
Every one of the 39 conferences of the United Church of Christ remains autonomous, making their own policies and resolutions. Each of the associations within a conference remain autonomous. But all are in covenant with one another, and that is what it means to be part of the United Church of Christ. You pledge to be in covenant, just as the couple married at the altar yesterday pledged to be in covenant with one another for the rest of their lives.
Some of you here this morning were raised in the Congregational tradition before the United Church of Christ came into being. In the 2004 UCC Yearbook, only 28 ministers are still listed as having standing only in the Congregational Christian Church. Some of you have only known the United Church of Christ. A great number more came into membership or attendance at Bay Shore Church not at all conscious or particularly interested in what denomination it is. It is, for them and you, simply the local Protestant or Christian church in the community in which you live.
Personally, I have been related to the United Church of Christ since my family joined the church in Los Alamitos in 1958. My parents were married and I was baptized in the ‘40s at Pilgrim Congregational Church in Los Angeles. I attended UCC churches out of a Congregational background in college and seminary in Santa Barbara and Berkeley. I was ordained in the United Church of Christ in 1973, and served two UCC churches in upstate New York before coming here in 1987.
I would observe, at best, that Bay Shore Church has had a "lukewarm" relationship with the United Church of Christ. Some ministers and church officers have been more active in it than others. I don't take that lukewarm relationship to be any great opposition to the UCC as much as worshippers here seem to be looking for a traditional place to worship with good music, a good message, a good children's and youth program, and good mission outreach opportunities, regardless of denomination.
Studies by church-growth experts reveal that today's church-seekers are not looking for any particular denomination, as much as whether a particular church meets their needs or that of their families. Just because your grandparents and parents were Presbyterians doesn't necessarily mean the next generation is automatically going to be Presbyterian too.
As a nearly life-long member of the UCC, do I agree with, endorse or support every stand the denomination takes, every resolution ever passed by all the previous 24 General Synods? Of course not. By the same token, I have friends—both clergy and lay—who are Lutheran, United Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic who don't agree with every stand and policy their churches take.
In an editorial in the June-July 2005 issue of United Church News, executive minister of Justice and Witness Ministries Bernice Powell Jackson tells how this line in the UCC Statement of Faith touches her deeply: You call us into your church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship. She writes: "God has called us into the UCC. It is not of our own volition, but it is a call from God. As we struggle with issues that sometimes divide us, it is good to remember that God has called us together, to wrestle with difficult issues and, somehow, to be bearers of grace. And the good news is that we don't all have to agree on everything; we just have to know that we are called together and called to love each other as Jesus loves us."
Regardless of what will be voted on by the delegates to the 25th General Synod of the United Church, regardless of which sensational issues the news media chooses to publicize, I want us to remember a line that you will see on the back of next Sunday's worship bulletin: "Given our congregational system of church government, delegates do not need to be reminded that General Synod speaks to the local churches of the United Church of Christ and not for them." (emphasis mine) As Bernice Jackson says, "we don't all have to agree on everything."
But do you want to know what I really think? I think if too much attention and energy is spent by anyone and everyone fretting over their denomination—whichever one it is—they stand in danger of missing the real mission of Christ's church, and that is to reach out in love and compassion and acceptance of others as Jesus would. Here are examples from Bay Shore Church just this month:
¤ On June 12 the Senior High Youth celebrated the collection of 839 food items in our annual food drive for St. Mary's CARE Food Pantry for families who have a member who is HIV positive or infected with AIDS. On Friday, I sent them our Mission Commission's monthly gift of $200 in Smart and Final scrip to buy more food.
¤ On June 15, thanks to your baking and serving efforts, we sent enough sloppy joes down to Christian Outreach in Action to feed 150 hungry and homeless persons in Long Beach. Last Monday, after our successful Summer Fun/Summer Funds fundraiser, I took down all the leftover food for them to use when they need it. And on Wednesday, I met with their executive director to plan their November fundraiser dinner here.
¤ On June 16 Michael Remley and I met with the vice president of Christ for the City International, the agency which raises funds in the States for Emmanuel Orphanage in Tijuana, which we helped build and have supported for over 15 years. Next month they open a new girls orphanage for the street children of Tijuana. The Missions Commission already sent $3,000 for commercial appliances. Michael is going to take to Missions a proposal that we might double our $100 a month donation—which is what it takes to support one boy—to additionally support one girl.
¤ Yesterday before the wedding party arrived, I showed Jimmy, a homeless man sleeping on our front steps, where he could more safely sleep on a secluded porch last night before he secures new housing on July 1. I gave him a Coke and agreed to pray for him.
In one month alone, this is who we are as a church. You might have wondered why my sermon had the grammatically incorrect title "Who Is the United Church of Christ?" instead of "What Is the UCC?" But it really comes down to "who," not "what." Who are we? How do we, in a denomination that bears Christ's name, reach out and do for others?
Finally, we may not say the UCC Statement of Faith often enough for you to know it, but nearly everyone can quote our sixty-year-old Bay Shore Church Bond of Union. And they all say they love this line from the third paragraph:
We cherish for each person the fullest liberty in the interpretation of truth,
and we gladly grant others the freedom we claim for ourselves.
We either mean what we say, or we're just giving it lip service.