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Evangelism, mission are woven together
July-August, 2002
Mary Alice Stahleker (left), and Nancy Lawrence, both from the First Church of Christ in Sandwich, use a loom to weave together strips of cloth representing ministries in the local churches. Two sides of the same coin. Two branches of the same tree. Many metaphors were used, all to convey the same message: evangelism goes hand-in-hand with mission and justice.
One Common Cloth: evangelism, mission and justice, was the theme of the 203rd Annual Meeting, held June 7–8 at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley.
The theme was vividly demonstrated through a weaving project which used strips of cloth brought by the attendees. To celebrate the accomplishments of the Conference churches, they were asked to pray over the cloth about positive evangelism, mission and justice activities that had taken place at their churches.
Those strips were tied together and then woven together using a large loom, which remained set up and in use through the rest of the plenary sessions.
The more than 800 attendees also saw two multi-media presentations about Conference churches that have had success with evangelism and mission projects, received a booklet about those successes, and heard from a live panel of guests from four churches:
St. John’s Congregational Church of Springfield, an African-American church that has rapidly grown to an average of 800 in worship. The church does a variety of Bible studies and programs to reach out to the Springfield community;
Visit our Special Annual Meeting Section for more, including: a photo gallery, complete text of the resolutions as voted, reports of the Minister & President and Board of Directors and detailed information on the land sale.
> Comment on this article through our Discussion Forum - Hancock United Church of Christ in Lexington, which offered a successful small-group ministry program for Lent;
- United Congregational Church in Worcester, which offers an ecumenical alternative worship for the gay and lesbian community;
- First Congregational Church UCC of Randolph, which is offering an alternative style of worship that is helping the church’s membership to become more multi-cultural.
The One Common Cloth theme was woven throughout other parts of the Meeting as well. Saturday’s worship, instead of focusing on the installation of Conference Minister & President Nancy S. Taylor, revolved around dedicating everyone – Conference staff and local church representatives – to ministry.
Young adults were also a more noticeable part of the common cloth of the Meeting due to a scholarship program to encourage their attendance. And high school youth in attendance shared the results of service projects they did through the Conference’s Reach Out! Program and took part in serving communion during Saturday’s worship.
