By J. Bennett Guess
United Church News
Dec. 7, 2004
CLEVELAND -- Since the United Church of Christ's national advertising launch on Dec. 1, nearly 70,000 online visitors to the UCC's websites searched to find a UCC congregation.
During the campaign's first five days, 288,000 users of the UCC's seeker-focused website stillspeaking.com made 54,500 inquiries on the site's "find a church" feature, by entering a zip code to locate a church near them. Meanwhile, at the denomination's primary website ucc.org, 13,000 of approximately 162,000 visitors searched to find a nearby UCC congregation.
"We have never, ever experienced anything like this before," says the Rev. Robert Chase, director of the UCC's communication ministry. "But even more importantly, we are hearing wonderful reports that people are not only finding UCC churches near them, but they are showing up."
This week, churches have been offering anecdotal reports to the church's national offices in Cleveland that attendance and enthusiasm were up considerably on Sunday, Dec. 5, due to the denomination's increased exposure.
The Rev. Greg Smith, senior pastor of Bethlehem UCC in Ann Arbor, Mich., said his congregation welcomed several first time visitors to its Sunday service, including three persons who said their attendance was due explicitly to the advertisements.
"One person doesn't even own a TV set, but heard about the ads on the radio!" Smith said.
St. Paul UCC in Barrington, Ill., had 18 visitors, of which five indicated the ads were the reason.
"I believe that God is speaking in unexpected and wonderful ways with this outreach," wrote the Rev. Jeanne Hanson, the church's pastor, "and I continue to pray for the love of Christ to be seen and felt in the radical welcome and unflinching courage of the church."
The Rev. David Bahr, pastor of Archwood UCC in Cleveland, said at least one family attended services because of the commercial.
"They were amazed that such diversity of race, sexual orientation and family style could live and worship so harmoniously," Bahr said.
Many UCC members reported enthusiasm to be at an all-time high.
Said a UCC member from northern Virginia, "Our folk, if they are typical, were completely fired up about the ads today, and very proud. And we were packed."
Church officials also reported that online documents about the UCC's beliefs, history and social justice commitments were among the most frequently viewed pages and were being accessed at never-before-seen levels.
Hits to this blog have nearly tripled since the ad went public last week. Around 3,000 hits a day have been recorded since last Monday. Nearly all of that traffic is due to people looking for information on the controversy. Most of the feedback has been positive. The only negative feedback has come from people upset with the UCC’s message that homosexuality is not a sin.
