UCCLM: The Church with a Vision and a Voice - and an Extravagant Welcome!

Owning our vision…

Finding our voice 

Butcher paper sprawled across the wall in Friendship Hall, the words on it on crying out for comment.  Beside it, armed with a rainbow of felt tip markers, were a handful of “editors,” eager to share their thoughts.  I found myself thinking of reggae musician Bob Marley.  “Life,” he said, is one big road with lots of signs.”

True enough.

This particular “signpost” put forward possible coordinates for a journey on which the people of the United Church of Christ of La Mesa (UCCLM) had decided to embark – a journey into the future of faith, rather an audacious adventure at a time when membership in mainline churches is dropping (down 12.8 percent between 2000 and 2012[1]) and “spiritual but not religious” is a familiar mantra!

But, as Marley went on to say, “Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality.  Wake up and live!”

We were doing just that, creating a Vision Statement to carry us forth and to share with others the excitement of all we as a progressive community of faith have to offer.

In generating this first draft, we were inspired by a poster created by one of UCCLM’s youth leaders, Dave Palmer, a series of questions entitled “What If?”

What if, for example, we spoke boldly for the left out and left behind in our communities?  Were gadflies for justice in East County?  What if there was so much happening at the church that no one person could reasonably keep track of
it?  If we offered life changing experiences for every group?  If youth in the area know for sure that everyone at UCCLM wanted them around?

And these were just for starters.

We drew, too, on the dreams and activities of our members and on our proud history - from supporting an orphanage in Baja California to sponsoring a veteran with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on his cross-country bike trip to raise awareness of the disease...from sending our youth on mission trips to work with and help others to providing transportation so area seniors can visit their doctors…from building a Habitat for Humanity home to providing an apartment for abused women and their families...from exploring - and celebrating - new avenues of worship to proudly declaring ourselves an Open and Affirming congregation where everyone, “without regard to sexual orientation, gender identity, social or economic status, physical or mental abilities, heritage or race, is welcome at the Table and into the full life and ministry of our church.”

And we asked ourselves, “What next?”  How best might we live our faith, our conviction that being Christian requires us to walk in the footsteps of Jesus? 

In the Vision Statement which emerged from our joint creative efforts can be found our answer:

UCCLM Vision

Who Do We Want To Be Three Years from Now?

We want to be and to be known as an extravagantly welcoming, theologically
progressive, justice and service committed, youth engaging congregation in East
County San Diego.

How Do We Get There?

We build on our long-standing commitment to these four strengths of UCCLM.  We invest in each of these core values, as all are necessary for us to be the church we need to be, serving God in this community.  We live as a community of abundance, not of scarcity, and we let everyone know we are here, ready to meet their and the community’s needs.

What Will We Be Doing?

Examples:  We will be providing a major new service to God's people and our community, for example, an East County feeding program.  We will be inviting youth for experiences that show Christianity is life changing, e.g., developing a safe place for LGBT students to meet after school or assisting youth in leading participation in a justice oriented social movement.  We will be trying new ways to worship, to meet the needs of people seeking a spiritual experience that is meaningful and open to their questions in the mystery of God's grace.  We will be extravagantly welcoming those different from ourselves into the life and leadership of the church.  This will include those we serve in our outreach, the youth who will bring some of their unique culture, and participants that will not be members but are part of our community.  We will be thriving, vital, a light on the hill, demonstrating God's love and acceptance for all people.

And there you have it – our vision given legs on which to run, our voice alive with promise!  In blogs to come I’ll share our journey, our dreams and our history with you, while opening wide the doors of UCCLM in extravagant welcome! 

UCCLM is located at 5940 Kelton Avenue, La Mesa, CA 91942 (619-464-1519, www.ucclm.org, office@ucclm.sdcoxmail.com.

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[1] Decennial census, Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies
(ASARB)