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50 Years Bold
Greetings, members and friends of St. John’s United Church of
Christ. On Sunday, October 21, 2007 at 4:00PM, we gathered at Woodside
Church UCC in Flint to celebrate our Church, the UCC’s, 50th
anniversary. It was an inspiring service. Our choir joined with choirs from
two other UCC churches in attendance, the music was stirring. The Rev. Dr.
Max Hayden, Grand Blanc, the Rev. Dr. Deborah Kohler, Flint, and the Rev.
David Schoen from UCC National office in Cleveland all participated. I also
had the privilege to address the congregation. A number of people have asked
for a copy of my comments, the following is my message.
May the God of peace bless you and our church with a new more
full measure of the Holy Spirit and prosper the work of our hands.
To God’s glory ~ pastor john
Today members of three congregations within the United
Church of Christ have gathered to celebrate our union and our call as
sisters and brothers in Christ.
The First Congregational Church United Church of Christ of Grand Blanc is
the second oldest congregation between Pontiac and Mackinaw. It originally
met to worship in barns, homes and schools until its’ first church was built
in 1855. Its’ second building erected in 1885 is now Grand Blanc’s City
Museum. Currently the church meets to worship on Belsay Rd in Grand Blanc
Township in its’ third church built in 1968. In this past year they have
added a Christian Life Center to their campus as they continue to praise
God’s name in service.
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Owosso, where I serve as pastor began in
1894 as St. John’s German Evangelical Church. It was a member of the
Evangelical Synod until it merged with the Reformed Church to become St.
John’s Evangelical and Reformed Church. We worship in the oldest church in
Owosso, built in 1856 by the Methodists, purchased by us in 1894. St. John’s
United Church of Christ continues to praise God’s name in service.
By contrast, Woodside Church, where we worship today had no history with
either the Congregationalists or the E & R churches until it joined the
Congregational Christian Churches in 1956. It was founded as First Baptist
Church in 1853. Legally it still is First Baptist and remains part of the
American Baptist Churches USA. Construction on the current building began in
1951 after the property was purchased from C.S. Mott. The church changed its
name in 1956 to Woodside Church and continues to praise God’s name in
service.
The United Church of Christ, formed in 1957 by the merger of
the Congregational Christian Church and the Evangelical and Reformed Church
is 50 years old. A golden anniversary is always cause for celebration, but
the roots of the United Church of Christ go back much farther than 50 years.
We trace the roots of our church back to the days before the
16th Century Reformation – to England where the reformation began
in the 14th Century with a man known as the “Morning Star of the
Reformation,” John Wycliffe. Wycliffe founded the Lollard Movement and is
credited with the first translation of the Holy Bible into the vernacular.
Wycliffe’s teachings inspired men like Robert Browne and
John Robinson who became founders of the Separatists. When a tiny group of
Separatists, we remember as the Pilgrims, were led by John Robinson to North
America in the early 17th Century; the Congregational Church
began.
On the European Continent: The Reformed Church began with
French Theologian John Calvin – The Evangelical Church with the Swiss
“People’s Priest” Ulrich Zwingli. Calvin and Zwingli lived in Geneva and
Zurich and were both contemporaries of Marin Luther.
All these early leaders of the Reformation Movement in our
church history were considered dissidents by the organized church body of
that day.
Being open to and trying to live the will of our Still
Speaking God as revealed in Christ necessarily involves dissent and dissent
based on God’s will is a glorious part of our beloved church’s history. And
do you know what?! Progressive thinking people of open heart and mind,
motivated by love, have in the past and continue today to unite with us in
dissent to the way of the world. Our theme today, United and Uniting, we
have united in the past and today we continue to unite to praise God’s name
in service.
We’ve not time today to delve deeply into the theological
traditions and teachings that make up our church history, but I will share a
few of the “firsts” which our church has done as we have lived God’s Word in
service.
● In
1620 the Pilgrim’s pastor, John Robinson, set the tone for a church who
listens to the Still Speaking God when he said, “God has yet more light and
truth to break forth out of his holy Word.”
● In
1700 Congregational pastor, the Rev. Samuel Sewall wrote the first
anti-slavery pamphlet in America, “The Selling of Joseph” and laid the
foundation for the abolitionist movement.
● In
1773 a young member of the Old South Congregation, Phyllis Wheatley, became
the first published African American poet. In that same year from that same
congregation came the first act of civil disobedience in U.S. history when
the Boston Tea Party was inspired by a gathering of angry colonists
demanding a repeal of an unjust tax.
● In
1785 we ordained the first African American pastor, Lemuel Haynes. He became
a world-renowned preacher and writer.
● In
1798 dissident preacher James O’Kelly became one of the founders of the
Christian Church. He wrote, “any number of Christians united in love, having
Christ as their head … constitutes a church.
● The
year, 1839, a defining moment in the Abolitionist Movement when the Amistad
Event happened. Our forbearers organized a campaign for the freedom of
captive slaves. Our church took the case all the way to the Supreme Court
which ruled the captive slaves were not property, and the Africans regained
their freedom.
● In
1840 a meeting of pastors in Missouri formed the first united church in U.S.
history – the Evangelical Synod.
● In
1853 Antoinette Brown is the first woman ordained as a Christian minister
since New Testament times.
● In
1897 we began the Social Gospel movement denouncing injustice and
exploitation of the poor, taking to new understanding Jesus’ command to
“love your neighbor as yourself.”
● In
1931 the Congregational and the Christian Churches merged to form the
Congregational Christian Church.
● In
1934 the German Evangelical and German Reformed Churches merged to form the
Evangelical and Reformed Church.
● In
1943 E & R theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote the now world famous Serenity
Prayer: “God give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that
cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and
the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”
● In
1957 the United Church of Christ is born when the Evangelical and Reformed
Church unites with the Congregational Christian Church. Our new church
embraces a rich variety of spiritual traditions and believers of African,
Asian, Pacific, Latin American, Native American and European descent.
● In
1959 the UCC Office of Communication intervened to stop southern television
stations from a news blackout of the Civil Rights movement. We won in
federal court a ruling that airwaves are public property.
● In
1972 the UCC’s Golden Gate Association ordains the first openly gay person
as a minister in a mainline Protestant denomination, the Rev. William R.
Johnson. In the following three decades our General Synod has urged us to
press for equal rights for homosexual citizens and welcome to all our
congregations members of the LGBT community.
● In
1976 our General Synod elects the Rev. Joseph H. Evans president of the UCC.
He became the first African American leader of a racially integrated
mainline church in the United States.
Brothers
and sisters, we have a great history – much to be proud of – yet there is
still more of God’s light and truth to break forth into the lives of Jesus’
disciples – who choose to love as Jesus loved – everyone everywhere. For
when we love as Jesus loved we can hear our Still Speaking God!
As we go
forward into the 21st Century let us listen to and embrace God’s
Word and God’s Love for everyone everywhere that God’s kingdom may come and
God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
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