In Antoinette Brown was ordained as minister of a Congregational Church in New York , making her the first American woman ordained into Christian ministry. In , five Williams College undergraduates felt a calling to dedicate their lives to foreign mission. Today, the United Church of Christ has missionaries around the world. In a Congregational church in Massachusetts in , Reinhold Niebuhr introduced and first prayed the 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.
The landmark decision first opened our federal airwaves to people of color. A United Church of Christ ordained minister, Benjamin Chavis, working in the UCC Office of Racial and Justice Ministries, first coined the phrase, "environmental racism" to describe the practice of placing toxic and waste facilities near poor, ethnic communities, targeting Native Americans, African Americans and Hispanics.
The United Church of Christ was the first denomination to ordain an openly gay person. Massachusetts Conference Annual Meeting delegates led the way in the Open and Affirming movement, which invites congregations to pray and study whether they are called to fully welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people into their lives and ministries.
On May 17, it became legal in Massachusetts for same-gender couples to marry. United Church of Christ clergy were probably the first Christian clergy to officiate at these legal unions.
Not all UCC clergy and churches are in favor of same-gender marriage. UCC clergy are not required to officiate at these unions; neither are they prevented from doing so by bishops or church doctrine. This web site is a ministry of the churches of the Massachusetts Conference, supported by your contributions to the wider church.
Permission granted to local churches to copy materials for their own use. Skip to content. DuBois 6. To donate, click here. This is an opportunity for clergy in the Conference to get together for weekly prayer, support, and the sharing of preaching and worship ideas for the coming Sunday.
An email with Zoom link was sent to all pastors. The same link is used each week. You can view a video of the meeting here. Annual Meeting Workshops Workshops for clergy video and resources can be seen here Workshops for lay video and resources can be seen here.
ISC Facebook. Thus the United Church of Christ celebrates and continues a broad variety of traditions in its common life. The characteristics of the United Church of Christ can be summarized in part by the key words in the names that formed our union: Christian, Reformed, Congregational, Evangelical.
By our very name, the United Church of Christ, we declare ourselves to be part of the Body of Christ—the Christian church. We continue the witness of the early disciples to the reality and power of the crucified and risen Christ, Jesus of Nazareth.
All four denominations arose from the tradition of the Protestant Reformers: We confess the authority of one God. We affirm the primacy of the Scriptures, the doctrine of justification by faith, the priesthood of all believers, and the principle of Christian freedom.
The basic unit of the United Church of Christ is the congregation. Members of each congregation covenant with one another and with God as revealed in Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit. These congregations, in turn, exist in covenantal relationships with one another to form larger structures for more effective work. Our covenanting emphasizes trustful relationships rather than legal agreements.
The primary task of the church is the proclamation of the Gospel or in Greek evangel. We proclaim this Gospel by word and deed to individual persons and to society. We gather for the worship of God, and through each week, we engage in the service of humankind.
We can tell you more about the United Church of Christ with the help of seven phrases from Scripture and Tradition which express our commitments. That they may all be one.
We are a uniting church as well as a united church. In essentials unity, in non-essentials diversity, in all things charity.
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