About Us 2

No matter how you celebrated Easter, I pray it was full of words like alleluia and
joy and perhaps a colored egg or a flowering plant. Now that Easter Sunday has
passed, do you still hold on to Resurrection hope? As you get the kids back in their
routine or look at your “to do” list or go to a doctor’s appointment, can you still
hear echoes of "Alleluia"? If you're facing a difficult decision or dealing with the
hurts of life, can you still trust the promise of new life?

Easter Sunday is meant to be glorious. Easter Monday can be hard. I wonder what
Mary Magdalene did on Easter Monday. Did she cook and wash clothes? Did Mary
trust what she had witnessed? Who did she talk to? Did she still feel the joy? I’d
like to imagine she gave thanks as if praise and thanks were words to a song stuck
in her mind.

What if we spent the next 50 days until Pentecost remembering and sharing all the
ways we see Easter love in our world? What if we spent 50 days saying thank you
to our Lord and recognizing God’s light shining in others?

The love of God is present not only on Easter Sunday but also on all the days to
follow. Let us seek to know the gifts of love and joy and hope that continue beyond
the Day of Resurrection. As individuals and as the church let us live out our
gratitude with acts of love and compassion.

Thank you for being people of light. Thank you for being a church that shares the
good news with each other and more importantly beyond our walls as evident in
the way you treat and care for others. Let us continue to be Easter people each
and every day.

The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a distinct and diverse community of Christians that come together as one church to join faith and action. With over 5,000 churches and nearly one million members across the U.S., the UCC serves God in the co-creation of a just and sustainable world. The UCC is a church of firsts, a church of extravagant welcome, and a church where "…they may all be one" (John 17:21).

The Church of Firsts

Since 1957, the United Church of Christ has been the church of firsts, weaving God’s message of hope and extravagant welcome with action for justice and peace. Together, we live out our faith in ways that effect change in our communities. The UCC's many "firsts" mean that we have inherited a tradition of acting upon the demands of our faith. When we read in Galatians: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus"—a demand is made upon us. And so we were the first historically white denomination to ordain an African-American, the first to ordain a woman, the first to ordain an openly gay man, and the first Christian church to affirm the right of same-gender couples to marry. We were in the forefront of the anti-slavery movement and the Civil Rights movement. Our response to the demands of our faith is woven into the history of our country.

A Church of Extravagant Welcome

Today, we continue to change lives throughout the world. We work alongside more than 200 mission partners. We labor ceaselessly to fight injustice, in the United States and abroad. We instill our vision into our youth and young adults, forging leaders who will imagine new dreams. And we sustain and develop church leaders, pastors, and our local churches to live their faith in exciting new ways. We believe in a God that is still speaking, a God that is all-loving and inclusive. We are a church that welcomes and accepts everyone as they are, where your mind is nourished as much as your soul.

We are a church where Jesus the healer meets Jesus the revolutionary, and where together, we grow a just and peaceful world.