Reflections from the UCC General Synod

I had a great time at General Synod… I want to thank you for making it possible for me to attend and represent our Quiet Corner of CT.

Even though each morning began with 6:30a.m. breakfast meetings and the days were so hot and humid my glasses fogged up the instant I stepped out of the convention center… it was a wonderful opportunity to make new friends from all over the country.

There was awesome music… powerful worship… informative workshops… soul-stirring testimonies… and messy and sometimes difficult discussions… all of which is the church at its best.

I was so happy to see over 200 youth and young adults actively participating in the life of the wider church… from teens to twenty-somethings… they got us up and moving with their music… and touched us with their prayers and wisdom. Their synod experience is bound to have a lasting impact on their lives… and the way they will live their faith.

But it wasn’t all work and no play… one evening several of us took the trolley to the end of the line and had a great time with some of the locals in Ybor City.

Back in the exhibit hall you could get anything from books on anything to do with the life of the church… to hand crafted stoles and tee shirts with the God Is Still Speaking “comma” logo. And there were information booths from several seminaries… as well as the many different specialized ministries that are part of the UCC.

It was at one of those booths that I was reminded of just how small a world we live in. I was speaking to a representative of the UCC Insurance Board… when she noticed that I was from CT. She asked what church I served… and when I told her… I thought she was going to cry…

You see… over 30 years ago… Priscilla Shoup was a young student minister shadowing Rev. Chuck Iloff… who was the pastor here at the time. She remembers Ruth Briere… and Susan Ennis… and told me how Ralph Seguine had taught her how to pray.

Those are just a few of the blessed moments I experienced at Synod. Again… thank you for the opportunity!
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Well… I’ve already told you about a few of the highlights of my experience at Synod… Now I’d like to share some of the words that have both challenged and inspired me while I was there…

After an afternoon full of educational sessions on the business that the gathered delegates were expected accomplish over the next 4 days… General Synod 28 officially opened with worship on Friday evening… One of those to offer a personal testimony that evening was the Rev. Susan Smith… pastor of Advent UCC in Columbus, OH…

With a wry smile… and twinkle in her eyes… she told us how her friends had strongly discouraged her from accepting the call to serve that congregation… It was a dying church of only 5 members when she agreed to be their pastor… Now there are well over 300 !…

Rev. Smith told us how her mother used to read her the same bedtime story every single night… Night after night she’d listen to the story of The Little Engine That Could…

She’s convinced that that nightly ritual of “I think I can… I think I can… I think I can…” transformed into “I knew I could… I knew I could… I knew I could...” became the foundation of her perseverance in ministry… in spite of all odds against that congregation succeeding.

It wasn’t until Rev. Smith decided to read that same story to her children that she realized that the little engine had actually said… “I thought I could… I thought I could…” as it made its way OVER the top of the mountain and down the other side… Her mother admitted to changing the words… Seems she felt they were too wishy washy… after all… with God ALL THINGS are possible!

Later that same evening… referring to the statement on the pin he was wearing that said… “Jesus didn’t reject people. Neither do we.” … the Rev. Josh Longbottom… the long-haired… twenty-something associate pastor at Plymouth Congregational Church in Lawrence, Kansas reminded us that… as Christ’s disciples… we’re called to extend our extravagant welcome even to “the weirdos and the freakies… to the ugly and the stinky…”
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Saturday started off with a keynote address from Leonard Pitts… a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist… and member of a UCC church. For him… Jesus is God’s way of showing us how the power of one can move many.

Speaking about our call to be witnesses of Jesus Christ… Pitts reminded us that throughout history there have been those people whose ideas and visions were once thought to be absolutely outrageous… and even crazy…

Yet these crazy people were able to bring about tremendous change for good in the world… crazy people like… Lincoln… Ghandi… and Martin Luther King, Jr… just to name a few.

But he wonders if Christians these days just aren’t crazy enough… We have a tendency to focus our energies and attentions on what we can’t do anymore… on all the reasons why our churches are declining… When we do that… we overlook the amazing possibilities that are right in front of our noses.

“People of faith have been far too guilty… for far too long… for thinking far too small…” he told us… But we live in a world that desperately needs us to think and act big.

To shrug our shoulders and blow off the problems that plague our neighbors near and far as “just the way it is”… is NOT a faithful response. “When did our imaginations… as people of faith… become shrunken?”… he asked us. Only when we’re prepared to fail gloriously is there any hope of success.

Then later that day… in a workshop titled: “Being a Movement” … one of my seminary classmates commented that churches have a unique role in setting a prophetic view of what’s possible… and that as Christians it’s our responsibility to build the movement that Jesus began… That’s what it means to be a disciple.
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Sunday’s preacher… the Rev. Laurinda Hafner… of Coral Gables Congregational Church… reminded us that the mission of the church isn’t to enlarge its membership… but to love the world in every possible way… as God did… and as God does! We are called to be a movement of living water… a movement of hope in the desert.
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Monday… the Fourth of July… was a working holiday for us… But before we got down and dirty with some of our most difficult resolution discussions… we were addressed by the Rev. Geoffrey Black… the General Minister and President of the UCC.

He urged us all to go back to our churches after Synod and take on what he called… “Big… Holy… Audacious Goals” that would enable us to become a growing church… and a growing movement…
…to be widely recognized as witnesses to the gospel…
…to become catalysts for excellence in ministry…
…and a church that’s relevant and reflective of the demographics of this nation…

“Set big goals…” he told us… “but don’t fear to act!” We are called not only to perceive the new thing that God is doing among us… but to pursue it as well.
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Then… after it was all over… after all the early morning caucuses and evening committee meetings…
…after debating and voting on 7 resolutions and electing new officers to lead our UCC churches into the future…
…after the last vender had left the exhibit hall…
General Synod 28 ended as it began… with worship… with a time to give thanks to the mighty God we serve… who continues to do a new thing… for us and through us.

The Rev. Elizabeth Clement of Atlanta, GA invited… well… no… it was more like she CHALLENGED us to…
… imagine what could be possible in our churches when we dare to bring our lives together as God’s people and care for one another above all else…
…imagine what could be possible when we put aside fear and blame and scarcity in favor of holding the life-giving tension that is in diversity and difference…
…in refreshment and transformation…
…in what is... and what is possible in GOD’S own imagination…

She invited us to imagine a world where the loudest Christian voice is not one of hatred and intolerance… but an alternative voice of compassion and support for all God’s children… then she challenged us to go back to our home churches and make it so.

18 The LORD says, "Forget what happened before,
and do not think about the past.
19 Look at the new thing I am going to do.
It is already happening. Don't you see it?...
(…now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?...)

My friends… God will be what tomorrow requires… What are the ministries that you feel we’re being invited to explore?

Where do you think God is calling us to be His Grace in the coming year?

What are some Big… Holy… Audacious Goals that will help us grow as a community of disciples?

Imagine what’s possible!

Amen.