Gracious God, who is still speaking life into being in new and wondrous ways and still speaking love into our lives and into our world, we thank you for guiding our church thus far on our journey of faith. In this moment, may we open our hearts anew to your ongoing call and invitation. Amen.
__________________________________________________________________
Today, we kick off the final month of our year-long centennial celebration as a church. Our one-hundredth anniversary is on June 24th and we are celebrating this month in worship with a sermon series highlighting and honoring various aspects of who we are as Bay Shore Church: our ministry, mission, and sense of call and purpose that continues to motivate us as a community of faith.
And we’re starting off today by honoring both our congregational roots as well as the roots of our covenantal relationship with other people, churches, and entities within our denomination, the United Church of Christ.
Since its founding in 1957, the UCC has drawn inspiration from today’s scripture lesson. The 17th chapter of John is the conclusion of Jesus’ farewell discourse that takes place after the Last Supper when Jesus offers his final teachings and words of encouragement to his disciples and prays for them. In today’s passage we hear Jesus praying for unity among his followers: “that they may all be one.” It’s a prayer not only for his first group of disciples, but also for all who would follow in their footsteps throughout the generations.
This prayer of Jesus was cited in the founding resolution of the UCC, and thus became the motto of the newly formed denomination. And it continues to help inspire our work together to this day. From early on, the UCC has identified itself as “a united and uniting church” that seeks to bring congregations together for a common purpose and mission.
In the early 20th century (when our own congregation was founded), there was a growing spirit of ecumenism and cooperation among several Protestant denominations. Prior to then, much of the story of European and American Protestantism since the 16th century had been one of branching out and splitting off. Some of that splitting and sectarianism was inevitable due to historical events (like the Henry VIII wanting to get divorced, for example), along with geography, national identities, cultural differences, and various understandings that developed over time of how to worship, govern, and organize church life. But, as time went on, and especially in the early 20th century, some denominations, including our UCC predecessors, began to explore the possibilities of uniting or reuniting with one another.
Part of the reason for this uniting impulse were the challenges of life in the early 20th century, especially two World Wars and the Great Depression. In the midst of those tough times, people were realizing the need for broader connections and communities of support. Many looked to their churches, their denominations, and partners in ministry for those connections. So, several groups decided to unite their smaller denominations with one another during that time. They did this, in part, so they could join forces in tackling some of the big issues of the day including caring for the poor and marginalized and offering a witness to the world for a more peaceful and just future.
These groups realized that they could still maintain their individual identities and worship preferences, and the like, and that they could work through their differences in governance and denominational structure. Those were all minor differences in the grand scheme of things. As they explored partnerships, they discovered that they had a lot in common and that there was much more work in the world that could be done better together.
Now, I would not be doing my duty if I didn’t at least give you the super short and oversimplified story of the formation of the United Church of Christ, so here you go (there will be a quiz later): In 1931, a group known as the Christian Churches and the Congregationalists (our denomination of origin which traces its roots back to the Pilgrims and the Puritans) got together and in 1934, the Evangelical Synod of North America (which itself was already a united denomination of Lutheran and Reformed members) and the Reformed Church in the U.S. got together. And in 1957, those two got together and formed the United Church of Christ.
Now, lest we think all of the influential people in the UCC were of European descent, it’s important to note that from early on there has been strong participation and contributions by historically Black, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities, and others who continue to help shape our UCC identity.
By the way, in case you didn’t know, our current UCC General Minister and President, the Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson is both the first woman and the first woman of African descent to serve in that position. It’s about time!
So, what’s with the history lesson? Our centennial anniversary is a great time to remember our roots, as we have been all year. And, within the DNA of Bay Shore Community Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) –– are both a spirit of congregational independence and covenantal relationship. Also, no wonder we shorten it to Bay Shore Church (long name!)
In the UCC, local churches like ours are autonomous. We make our own decisions about finances, organizational governance, policies, property, staffing, and so on. We elect our own leaders. It is you, the congregation, who calls your pastors to serve the church and votes on all important decisions. In our denomination, we affirm that Christ alone is the head of the church. We don’t have a bishop or an ecclesiastical hierarchy that makes decisions for us. So, in many ways, whether we sink or swim as a local church, is up to us.
And yet, we are also united in covenant with many other local churches and entities within our Southern California Nevada Conference and the broader UCC across the country (and worldwide with our various global ministry partners). We have a Conference Minister (who will be with us in worship in a couple of weeks for a visit), two new Associate Conference Ministers, as well as other conference staff and elected committees of volunteers, all of whom are there to care for, offer guidance, support, and oversight for both clergy and congregations. We have partners in this ongoing work of being the church in the world.
We are in this together. And this is a covenantal relationship is grounded in our relationship with God who first invited us into loving relationship. We are guided by the call to love our neighbors and there is mutual support at work in these relationships. Our conference and other partners are there for us when we need them and we support our conference and the wider church with our mission dollars each year.
As you may remember, in one of her wonderful history presentations Linda Sumpter gave us a really great example of this mutual support. When our church was on the brink of foreclosure back in the 1930s, First Congregational Church of Long Beach came to our aid. We might not be here without the support of our neighbor church.
Here are a couple of more recent examples:
When the Lahaina fire in Maui broke out in 2023, causing such devastation including burning the historic Waiola UCC church, the Hawaii Conference of the UCC put out an emergency appeal for aid and people all across the country pitched in. When the LA fires broke out in our backyard, devastating our communities and burning our beloved Altadena UCC church at the beginning of this year, the Hawaii Conference contributed a $30,000 gift to our conference to help with fire relief efforts. They know what it’s like and with their gift they noted that nearly half of the gifts to the Hawaii Conference in 2023 came in from Southern California.
And when First Congregational Santa Ana recently came to the conclusion that their congregational ministry had come to its completion and they decided to close and sell their building, they began to consider what their legacy might be. It’s a hard choice to close a ministry. But they chose to let one ending lead to a new beginning for a new generation by supporting youth and children. They are now in the process of giving Pilgrim Pines Camp a gift of four million dollars, some of which will be used to address urgent maintenance needs (including new roofs for most of the buildings and repairing or replacing the pool) and they will establish an endowment fund for maintenance that will ensure the camp facility can continue to support outdoor ministries for generations to come.
We’re called to be there for each other. And we’re stronger together. In her keynote address at our Conference Annual Gathering, our Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, our General Minister and President spoke about the importance of investing in our relational capital. It’s what being the church together, across our many communities, the country, and the globe is all about.
That doesn’t mean it’s always simple to navigate these covenantal relationships. Many of us (across the UCC) own our congregationalist identity and we like our autonomy. But unity is not the same as uniformity. Being a united and uniting church doesn’t mean we have to all be the same. We are a diverse people. We don’t always all agree on everything. We have some different ways of doing things sometimes. In fact, one of the running jokes is that sometimes UCC stands for the Untied Church of Christ. But, when we consider what is most important, we have much that unites us, a lot in common, and a shared faith in God’s abundant love in Christ.
Personally, I find it exciting, fun, and meaningful to be a part of both a congregation and a denomination that is finding its way in the world together in a non-hierarchical, pro-collaboration, community-building kind of way, even when it is challenging. We are both rooted in our faith tradition, but also flexible enough to move with the Holy Spirit.
Call me a church nerd (I am!) but I love this line from the preamble to the constitution of the UCC: “[The United Church of Christ] affirms the responsibility of the Church in each generation to make this faith its own in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart before God.”
That is our call, folks. This is a dynamic faith. Church is a living community. It is our responsibility to find our way together, in this generation, listening to the voice of God who is still speaking.
So, as we celebrate together this month where we have been, how our church has taken shape, grown, and engaged in ministry and mission for the last century, let us also look to the future. Let us honor and remember our roots, find our grounding in God, and imagine how we are called to continue to be a united and uniting church of Christ here and now.
Just like the early 20th century when our congregation was born and our denomination began to take shape, this moment in history has its challenges. And this moment is also calling for collaboration, community, and coalitions of people willing to work for positive change in our world.
It is as important now, as ever, to proclaim a vision for a more just, peaceful, loving, inclusive, and safe world for all and to work toward it. And if we are to amplify our witness as followers of Jesus who seek to care for all who call this planet home and want to share God’s love in every way possible in this generation, we need partners.
We have some of these partners already! Let’s nurture those relationships and forge new ones within our denomination, with people of other Christian communities and denominations, with people of other faith traditions, and with other like-minded, open-hearted communities of people who don’t claim a religious tradition. It will take all of us!
Where will the next 100 years take us as a church? We’ll see where the Holy Spirit leads! In the meantime, let us trust that the journey is worth taking together and that God will continue to ground, guide, and inspire us to step out in faith.
Amen.