If Our Church Could Only Be Like This Church…Only More So

In October of 2017, Reverend Mary H. Lee-Clark, minister at the Second Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Bennington, Vermont, wrote a piece called, If You Came to My Church…You wouldn’t have to say the Creed. After I recovered from my envy that her congregation had a female minister, and the longing it produced, I loved what it said about what all genders’ access to ministry and leadership might do for us.

Here is some of what she described:

If you came to my church, you’d see the banner out front with the silhouette of the Holy Family escaping to Egypt, with the words over it, “Immigrants and Refugees Welcome.” You’d come in either beneath the rainbow-colored flag out front, or through the garden with the Peace Pole and the prayer “May peace prevail on earth” in eight languages, or from the back parking lot, where you’d get a good look at the solar panels on the roof. If you use a wheelchair or walker, every door would be accessible to you.

And this:

If you came to my church, you’d be welcomed by at least three people, and that welcome would be reinforced by the statement printed at the bottom of the service program: “We are an Open and Affirming, Green Justice Congregation of the United Church of Christ. We welcome to our work and worship all people of faith, or in search of faith, without regard to age, race, economic condition, disability, or sexual orientation, and we seek to care and advocate for the earth and its creatures.”

I love the Kyrie but it would be so enhanced by some pauses and questions like:

If you came to my church, you’d have an opportunity to think back over your week (or longer), to see how or whether you’ve wandered from your True Self, whether you’ve contributed to the world’s sorrow, or just your neighbor’s, or just your own. Some churches call this a “confession of sin,” but we think of it as telling the truth about how we’ve been separated or alienated from God and our true selves, knowing that we are all “made in the image of God,” as the story in Genesis says, and that we can be better. The pastor reminds us of who we are and Whose we are, and we give thanks for the opportunity to begin again.

And then there’s an inclusive homily, one that did not just go only one way from only one gender:

If you came to my church, you’d hear a couple of passages read from the Bible, and then you’d hear a sermon that would draw on the latest in Biblical scholarship and commentaries, as well as contemporary writers…You’d hear her (italics mine) questions about the text and be invited to bring your own questions. You wouldn’t have to simply believe or accept literally what the Bible passages say, but you’d be given ways to understand their context and setting, and you’d explore how our understandings may have evolved and been given new images and metaphors for the Divine Reality (italics mine)…

And then there’s the bit about the Creed:

If you came to my church, you wouldn’t have to say the Creed, because, although we affirm the creeds of the church as snapshots of understanding and belief through the centuries, we believe that God is still speaking—in words, in events, through people, in nature. “Never put a period where God has placed a comma,” as Gracie Allen said.

And there’s this sacred affirmation:

If you came to my church, you’d hear these words every week: “Whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”

And, finally, there’s the challenge with which she ends the piece:

If you came to my church, you just might have to rethink your impression of who you thought Christians were and what “going to church” is all about. And you’d be welcome.

Much as I loved all this and wanted it, at least where it was missing, for us, I did notice the glaring absence of any mention of the Eucharist. And so…

If you came to my renewed, reborn Church of the people – and I mean all people – the Eucharist is the one essential we could never do without.