Headlines | Church News | Classifieds | This Week | ConnTact | Video | Blogs | Disaster Response | Archive | Submissions

The Revelation of Synod

Davida Foy Crabtree, Conference Minister

by Davida Foy Crabtree

HARTFORD (06/05/2007) -- The United Church of Christ General Synod is an anomaly in our culture:

• It is a gathering that celebrates our conviction that Jesus Christ makes us one body and at the same time celebrates our rich and deep diversity.
• It is a legislative assembly that speaks only for itself, yet to all of us both within and outside the denomination.
• It is a joyous gathering of a Christian family that stretches around the globe and yet affirms that the local church is the basic unit of its life and ministry.
• It is unabashedly Christian, yet welcomes interaction with people of other faiths and of no faith.
• It is unapologetically convinced of the imperative of faith and faithfulness, yet unafraid of the challenges of living that faith fully in the midst of culture and world.

So when the Synod gathers, we will hear a remarkable array of speakers and presenters. Many of them will be UCC. Yet an equal number will be people from outside our tradition, people who are radically secular, who come from other cultures, and who will challenge our worldview. Many of us relish moments like this. Others are uncomfortable.

It takes a particular spirituality to welcome challenge. It is a spirituality that recognizes that God speaks not only through the hallowed pages of Biblical text, but also in the midst of culture, community and confrontation. This spirituality evokes in us an openness to seek the gifts that others bring rather than to close ourselves off because revelation is over. It requires a mature openness that is rooted in confident conviction that is at once both inviting and discerning. It demands of us that we look to the larger world around us as we enter our next 50 years, not just to the interior life of the church.

Such a spirituality is a breath of fresh air, a long drink of cool water, in the context of a world that increasingly knows only a Christianity that sees “the other” as threat, that seeks to dominate, and that defines the faith in the narrowest of terms. Our spiritual journey June 22 to 26 will be accompanied by cultural, political and theological commentators, by rappers, storytellers, and futurists, by choirs, artists and doctors, by peacemakers, Bible professors, and actors, by people we never thought we’d meet and those we never thought we’d get to meet!

We are an anomaly in this world right now. Let’s meet in Hartford and celebrate our experience of the Holy Spirit and Let It Shine!