Who We Are
We are an "Open and Affirming" church,
a community of God's people, joined in a spiritual journey,
encouraging discussion, sharing thoughts and ideals. We welcome people from varied traditions and value each one's gifts.
Our faith is over 2000 years old; our thinking is not.
We take the bible seriously, not literally.
Where We Are
301 S Lewis St, Monroe, WA 98272
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Origins of the UCC
The United Church of Christ was born in the 20 th century as a result of the ecumenical drive of
that century. People long concerned with the denominational divisions within the faith sought to
follow what the UCC later took as its motto: “That they may be one.” (John 17:11) Four
denominations merged into two: the Congregational Churches and the Christian Church; and the
Evangelical and the Reformed Church. These two then merged in 1957 to become the United
Church of Christ.
In the 21 st century, the UCC has recognized that a fifth “stream” has formed us as well: the Afro- Christian Convention, formed in 1892. Their churches, primarily in Virginia and North Carolina, provided spiritual nurture to more than 25,000 members. If you ask us within the UCC how old our denomination is, we rarely answer with that 1957 date. We date our existence back to the Pilgrims, to Rev. John Robinson’s famous parting words to them when they left the Netherlands, bound for the New World: “the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth from His holy word; "The Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth from His holy word." We date our existence back to the Amistad, the ship carrying recently purchased humans from Havana; those humans killed the captain and the ship’s cook and demanded that the crew return them to Mendeland in Africa whence they had been taken. The crew instead sailed them to Long Island, NY and off that area they were seized and imprisoned. Rev. Joshua Leavitt, a Congregational minister and abolitionist, worked to provide them defense, and eventually, those who had survived this ordeal were freed and returned to their homeland. (Rev. Leavitt was one of many Congregational abolitionists.) We date our existence back to a series of “firsts” – the first ordained woman (Antoinette Brown in 1853); the first man of color ordained (Lemuel Haynes in 1785); the first openly gay man ordained (William Johnson in 1972.) We have a long history, but we are not necessarily long on tradition. We honor what has come before us, but we also question it. We embrace the gifts of science and philosophy, but, more than that, we embrace good questions. We encourage every person to discern their own path. There is a famous quote: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.” It has been attributed to a Lutheran (Peter Meiderlin, 1626) but it fits us in the UCC as well. Our polity recognizes that the Holy Spirit speaks to each one of us and thus, in order for us to understand more fully, we need one another to help discern our way forward. The New England tradition of town meetings took that practice from the Congregational churches’ practice of Annual Meetings, where all the members together discern the best use of resources and the best direction forward for the congregation. We still follow that practice.
For more information on the United Church of Christ, please visit ucc.org
