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December 2004
“Go tell it on the mountain, over the hill and everywhere … that Jesus Christ is born!” The popular African American spiritual urges us to share the good news of Christ’s birth everywhere. This month the United Church of Christ will do its best to do just that: airing nationwide two, 30-second television commercials that shout the good news of God's extravagant love which the United Church of Christ tries to model and extend. The commercials will air between December 1 and 26 on a combination of cable and network television. It is estimated that they will reach 60 percent of the population, who will each see the commercials an average of four to five times.
Why television? For several reasons. First, for a large percentage of our population, if you are not on television you do not exist. Second, we hope that the television ads, complemented by our own renewed efforts at evangelism, will reach countless people who currently feel alienated or disaffected from the institutional church. Third, television is, arguably, the most powerful medium available to us today. We would be foolish not to take advantage of it. The television ad campaign represents a massive effort across the United Church of Christ to tell the story of God’s love to a world sorely in need of it.
The Advent and Christmas season is the most opportune season to invite people into your sanctuary to meet the Living God in scripture, carols, prayer, children’s faces, preaching and in a lively faith that is 2000 years old, but engaged in the present … a faith that is obviously marked by hope, joy, and love.
Today, the majority of the American public is unchurched. Many of them are lonely, hurting and hungering. As we decorate our sanctuaries with the colors of this season, as we rehearse anthems, prepare pageants, and write sermons, let us do so – not primarily for our own church members whom we know and love, but – for the stranger and alien, the unchurched and dissaffected. If our ads work as we hope they will, if we find our voices of welcome and hospitality, they will come.
I, therefore, challenge every member of this Conference of Churches to personally invite someone new (colleague, friend, neighbor, family member) to your church this Advent and Christmas. Keep an eye out before, during and after worship for visitors. Speak with them, thank them for coming and invite them back. Let us be there, ready and waiting with open arms and a warm welcome for those whom God sends us … knowing that in this way some have entertained angels unawares.
Friends, this is my final column in this space. In January my resignation will become effective and I will move from this ministry into a different ministry within the UCC: to serve as the senior minister of the Old South Church in Boston. Thank you for the privilege and honor of having served in this position for over three terms. May God bless you, the clergy and congregations of this Conference of Churches, as we continue to minister faithfully into the future to which God calls us. God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.