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from the Minister & President
Let's go to Annual Meetilng and make history

January-February 2004
By Nancy S. Taylor

In the midst of the season of Epiphany (which means, appearing ) I am hopeful that our full allowance of delegates, and all clergy who are able, will appear at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley for the 205 th Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, June 11-12. It is with joy and confidence that I invite each congregation to ensure that you are represented and each ordained minister of the Conference to attend. Participation in the Annual Meeting is not only a privilege for those who follow the Congregational Way, but also a responsibility.

To attend Annual Meeting is to participate in passionate discussion of contemporary matters of theology, faith, and practice; to explore opportunities for education and edification; to commune with one another as we worship and adore the Living God; to encourage and inspire each other in the Christian life; to hear and meditate upon the Word; to open ourselves to the fresh winds of the Spirit in our world and lives today; to conduct the business of the Conference; to exult in the sound of nearly a thousand voices singing hymns and psalms and spiritual songs; to express our essential unity as the one body of Christ and to embody a living answer to the prayer of Jesus, "that they may all be one."

In case you are in any doubt, our Annual Meetings do matter. Over the past two centuries, Annual Meeting actions have had a profound effect on the discernment and moral conscience of member churches, as well as upon the civil body politic. For instance, in 1837, delegates declared that slavery is "offensive to God, offensive to men, and ought to cease." Delegates to the 1867 Meeting submitted a bill to the state legislature to prohibit laborers from being forced to work more than six days in a week. In 1932, delegates voiced their support for Federal aid for the unemployed. In 1959 delegates declared that "segregation is a sin." From opposition to gambling and the death penalty, to support for universal education and restrictions on child labor, we have brought our moral conscience - informed by theological deliberation, biblical study and ethical reflection - to speak to the common good. Who knows with what matters the delegates to the 205 th Annual Meeting will wrestle? Clergy and churches - don't miss out by your absence or lack of representation!

Attendance at Annual Meeting is a precious opportunity to exercise the freedoms and responsibilities for which our forebears so arduously labored. The Congregational Way means nothing if we are merely a disconnected collection of churches. As early 1648, in the Cambridge Platform, our Congregational forebears codified their belief that churches are enjoined to meet together as "spiritual and ecclesiastical assemblies .to debate and determine controversies of faith and cases of conscience." They believed such assemblies, "being met together in Christ", were "necessary to the well-being of churches, for the establishment of truth and peace therein."

The theme for 205 th Annual Meeting, Word, Worship, and Wonder: Declare It Boldly! , is built upon the fourth initiative in our Conference's Vision for Growth and Renewal: Communicating the Gospel in the Twenty-First Century . In anticipation of an abundance of delegates and visitors, we are planning more opportunities, activities, speakers, and workshops than in recent years.

Laity: have the full allowance of delegates from your church been chosen? If not, will you urge your congregation's leadership to ensure that your church is fully represented? Clergy: are these two days in June saved in your calendar? Every ordained UCC minister with standing in our Conference is, by right and privilege, a voting delegate. Regrettably, in the recent past, only about a fourth of our clergy have attended Annual Meeting. It is my Epiphany wish that more will appear this year.

Friends in Christ, I look forward to your appearance, attendance and participation at the 205 th Annual Meeting of the largest Protestant denomination in the Commonwealth. When we gather together in all our splendid, God-given multiplicity and diversity, we embody Christ's prayer and plea "that they may all be one." And who knows? We may make history together!