In Geographic Twist, Wave of Southern Churches Affiliating With Progressive United Church of Christ
October 4, 2006
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October 3, 2006
CLEVELAND, Oct. 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- When Holy Trinity Community Church, a 350-member congregation in Memphis, Tenn., was received into the United Church of Christ on Sept. 30, through a vote of the UCC's St. Louis Association, it became the most-recent sign of heightened southern exposure for a largely- northern denomination once sparsely visible in the South.
"It was after and because of the marriage equality vote of General Synod that Holy Trinity made their decision to join the UCC," said the Rev. David Schoen, who heads the UCC's evangelism ministry in Cleveland, Ohio. Since its founding in 1990, Holy Trinity Church has supported the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons.
The Memphis congregation is one of 65 more-progressive churches -- primarily in the South -- that have expressed interest in joining the 1.2-million-member UCC since its highest deliberative body called for civil marriage rights for same- gender couples. Conversely, about 100 churches, as well as the UCC's Puerto Rico Conference, have voted to withdraw in disagreement over the non-binding resolution.
Holy Trinity in Memphis joins a number of southern churches that have sought out affiliation with the generally progressive UCC. Earlier this year, the UCC's Southeast Conference granted standing to the 300-member Garden of Grace Church in Columbia, S.C., the 250-member Holy Trinity Church in Nashville, Tenn., and a new African-American church start, Unity Worship Center, in Montgomery, Ala.
Later this month, the UCC's North Texas Association is expected to act on a request to receive the 4,300-member Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, which would make it the denomination's fourth largest congregation. The UCC's second largest church, the 5,500-member Victory UCC near Atlanta, became affiliated with the UCC only four years ago.
"I keep saying it - give us 10 more years. I think we can shift this around," the Rev. Timothy C. Downs, the UCC's Southeast Conference Minister, said last year when the UCC held its controversial General Synod in Atlanta. "I think we can become known."
In April, the board of directors of the UCC's Local Church Ministries, one of the denomination's four national Covenanted Ministries, voted to endorse an ambitious strategy for planting and welcoming 250 new churches into the UCC by 2011 and as many as 1,600 new churches by 2021.
"Now is the time for new church development in the UCC," Schoen said at the time.
Increasingly, for example, Baptist churches in disagreement with the Southern Baptist Convention over issues of women's ordination or gay-lesbian inclusion are exploring UCC affiliation. At least that's been the case in Virginia and Georgia. And that's quite a new twist for a Yankee-prone denomination, one that has more than 700 congregations in Pennsylvania but just one in Mississippi.
Schoen believes the UCC is finding new momentum in southern states because more-progressive Christians are looking for alternatives to the region's widely-conservative faith communities. Since December 2004, when the UCC first embarked on a national multi-media advertising campaign, the vast majority of those expressing interest in the UCC, where no church was yet located, were those living in southern states, Schoen said.
Widely recognized for its liberal mix of mainline Christianity and social activism, the UCC often touts its "early arrival" on justice issues, including the first ordination of an African- American pastor (1785), the first ordination of a woman (1853), and the first ordination of an openly gay minister (1972).
Until recently, nearly 80 percent of the UCC's 5,633 churches were located in the Northeast and Midwest. Created in 1957 by the union of the Congregational Christian Churches in America and the Evangelical and Reformed Church, the UCC is the largest Protestant denomination in New England, with more than 400 churches in Massachusetts alone.
Memphis' Holy Trinity UCC is located near the University of Memphis and becomes the third UCC congregation in the city, joining First Congregational UCC and Second Congregational UCC. The Rev. Timothy Meadows, who is also completing the process of transferring his ministerial standing into the UCC, has been Holy Trinity's senior pastor for more than 10 years.
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