A Letter to the Church from the Collegium of Officers
Blessed quietness, holy quietness, what assurance in my soul.
On the stormy sea, Jesus speaks to me, and the billows cease to roll.
The gospel reading for June 25, the 49th anniversary of the United Church of Christ, is the familiar story in Mark of Jesus quieting the storm. “Peace, be still!” The seas do seem stormy, and the boat fragile as we observe another anniversary of our beloved church. Yet amid all that challenges, Christ’s presence continues to be felt in and through our church.
We celebrate the fact that, over the past several months, lives have been touched and service opportunities have become available in the devastated Gulf Coast region. This is due to your generosity and the ongoing work of our National Disaster Response Ministry, Back Bay Mission, the New Orleans Association, the South Central Conference, and local churches. Work camps from across the UCC are in New Orleans and Biloxi each week helping restore homes and hope. New congregations are being developed to meet the needs of displaced people. Prophetic voices are being raised by the UCC and others, calling not just for rebuilding, but for a just rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. And in Florida, UCC volunteer groups are still hard at work restoring communities following earlier hurricanes, communities often forgotten by the media but not by the church.
Our church has experienced a wonderful revival of energy and new life through The Stillspeaking Initiative. We continue to receive affirmation for our third “God is still speaking” commercial, “Ejector,” shown this past Easter season. Ron Buford’s resignation from the leadership of this Initiative may be unsettling to some who wonder about the future of this significant movement in the life of our church, even though he will continue to assist in a consulting role. But plans are underway to reshape the staff to be able to lead us forward in exciting ways this fall, implementing the Executive Council’s transition strategy for more deeply incorporating the gifts of “Stillspeaking” into the whole life of the church. And we are excited by the emerging Congregational Vitality Initiative – CVI – which promises significant new resources for our local churches. (Check it out at www.uccvitality.org.)
We are grateful – and relieved! – that General Synod will still be in Hartford next June. The unwillingness of the owners and managers of the planned venue for our 50th anniversary to negotiate in good faith with unions representing low wage hotel and convention center workers left us with no choice but to look for a new site. A wonderful coalition of conference, government, and business leaders helped us find a new site in Hartford even as we took a bold stand for justice for the working poor.
We are encouraged by the work of the directors of the United Church of Christ Insurance Board and their new President, Cathy Green. The instability of the Conferences’ property and liability program has been of deep concern to the whole church. Word from the UCCIB that they are well along the way toward a redesigned program that will restore stability and growth to that important ministry is good news for all of us.
With the whole church we have been profoundly saddened by the decision of United Church of Christ congregations to leave the denomination since the 2005 General Synod. Most recently we have received the very disappointing news that the Assembly of the Iglesia Evangelica Unida de Puerto Rico, our Puerto Rico Conference, has voted to disaffiliate from our church. These departures bring sorrow, loss and change, and will require significant work to ensure that United Church of Christ legacies are preserved and graceful transitions made possible. We will also need to explore how we might relate to the IEUPR as an independent church, possibly drawing from models found in existing global partnerships. As we pray for those who have left, we will also look for ways that members in those congregations or in the Puerto Rico Conference who want to remain in fellowship with the UCC can do so. Meanwhile, we rejoice at the 65 congregations across the country that are in development or seeking to affiliate with the United Church of Christ.
We are humbled by the messages we receive from many of our national and global partners who speak of the power of our witness to justice and peace here and in their own contexts. This is especially true in places like the Middle East where our voice on behalf of the right of Palestinians to a secure homeland and a capital in Jerusalem remains resolute, or in the Philippines where pastors and lay workers who stand for justice have been assassinated, or in Darfur, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and so many other places where our gifts are helping to care for victims of war and disaster. Our witness also includes a readiness to challenge the policies of our own country – seen, for example, in thousands of UCC members calling for just immigration policies. As one of our partners said recently, that kind of speaking out “is a strong sign of your church’s commitment for justice, peace, and the integrity of creation, and it shows anew that we have to discern the different voices of the American society.”
On this anniversary Sunday, 3,000 UCC and Disciples women are concluding their “Mix in 06,” a time of imagining God’s call to mission and ministry within the context of our Ecumenical Partnership. The Council for Hispanic Ministries has just concluded three successful days of long-range planning. We look forward to other special gatherings this summer of Pacific Islander Asian American Ministries, United Black Christians, and Ministers for Racial, Social, and Economic Justice. Regional youth events will take place across the church, along with full schedules of outdoor ministry, mission trips, and vacation church school programs. The sixth UCC Musicians National Network conference will be held in August. It will be a full summer of faith formation.
Observance of the 49th anniversary reminds us that we will soon begin a yearlong celebration of the 50th anniversary of the United Church of Christ. Special events on All Saints’ Sunday, November 5, will include a nationwide webcast event. Commemorative publications, special educational resources, churchwide conversations about our ministry into the future, and of course the 50th Anniversary General Synod will highlight a year long celebration. Every local church is invited to send four members to this Synod in Hartford, June 22-26. We hope you will want to come to this once in a lifetime event, and, as our anniversary logo announces, “Let it shine.”
We are grateful for your continued prayers and generosity, which give tangible expression to the comforting words of Jesus amid the storm. Know that we are committed to be faithful stewards of your gifts to Our Church’s Wider Mission – never more so than now, in financially challenging times – and that we pray for you as well. May God’s peace be with you in the ministries you do in Jesus’ name, along with blessed days of stillness in these summer months.
John H. Thomas, General Minister and President
Edith A. Guffey, Associate General Minister
M. Linda Jaramillo, Executive Minister, Justice and Witness Ministries
José A. Malayang, Executive Minister, Local Church Ministries
Cally Rogers-Witte, Executive Minister, Wider Church Ministries