Thanks for stopping by our website. Many people visit church web sites as they are looking for a faith community. Here’s a little bit about Memorial United Church of Christ that may help you in your search.There are four facets we’d offer for your consideration:
- This is a place for all — male or female, young or old, gay or straight, black or white, rich or poor, healthy or not.
- We are a place where all people struggle together to understand God, Jesus and our lives.
- As much as we treasure our church community, we are deeply committed to the community around us.
- Underlying all of this is a continual effort to nurture our spiritual lives.
There’s more about these facets below. But if you’d like to stop by, call or write, our pastor would be happy to meet with you and chat about your faith journey and what you are seeking in a faith community. In the meantime, we hope you find this site a useful introduction to Memorial United Church of Christ.
Open and affirming – The phrase you see under our name at the top of this page — “A welcoming community growing together in Christ” — says a lot about us. The first thing we hope you will notice if you come to visit us is that we are a friendly bunch. We have a commitment to welcome all people here, whoever they are, wherever they are on life’s journey. We are an open and affirming congregation, which means, in our official language: “We welcome persons of all ages, races, sexual orientations, gender identities, and church backgrounds to participate in the life and ministry of our church.”
Progressive Christians – Within the range of Christian churches, we fall on the theologically progressive side of the spectrum. We are a congregation and a denomination that takes seriously what we learn from the Bible and from our Christian ancestors, but we are not a church of litmus tests. The preamble to the constitution of the United Church of Christ puts it very well: we affirm the responsibility of people in each generation to make this faith their own “in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression and in purity of heart before God.” We are a place where people wrestle together with questions, doubts and new insights even as we all strive to live out Jesus’ teachings.
Justice and peace – We are a community that is deeply engaged with the wider community. Our congregation has a long history of being involved with programs in Madison and around the world that work to foster justice and peace.You can read more about those under the tab marked “Serve,” where you can find links to some of our outreach efforts. We also are a community where people do a great job of looking out for each other in the midst of life’s struggles.
Nurturing spirituality – And we are a community that tries to take the spiritual lives of people seriously. Our Sunday worship strives to create a place where people can experience a connection to God as well as to each other. We look for opportunities to help people individually deepen their connection to God and to tap the spiritual resources they have within them. All of this fosters our growing together in Christ.
Blessings! |
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