Our Mission
To use our individual and congregational gifts, talents and resources to communicate: the Good News of Jesus Christ, to bring to all His word, His healing, His compassion and His forgiveness, being a warm, accepting and loving faith community.
Statement of Faith
The preamble to the constitution of the United Church of Christ also forms the basis of our own constitution and states our basic beliefs:
"The United Church of Christ acknowledges as its sole head, Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior. It acknowledges as kindred in Christ all who share in this confession. It looks to the Word of God in the Scriptures, and to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, to prosper its creative and redemptive work in the world. It claims as its own the faith of the historic Church expressed in the ancient creeds and reclaimed in the basic insights of the Protestant Reformers. It affirms the responsibilities of the Church in each generation to make this faith its own in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart before God. In accordance with the teaching of our Lord and the practice prevailing among evangelical Christians, it recognizes two sacraments: Baptism and the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion."
We are unashamedly a Christian church, believing that God has wonderfully and uniquely come to us in the man, Jesus Christ, and through him God is healing all of our human divisions and our broken relationship with him. We also believe that this same God has called us to be instruments of His healing power in the world and to carry on the work of Christ until the end of time. We have much to do and so we humbly acknowledge our reliance upon His strength, wisdom and love to carry out this God-given mission.
History
In a very real sense First St. John United Church of Christ (UCC) is very young. We had our birth in the 1990 merger of St. John UCC, located at Front and Sycamore street since 1837 and First UCC, founded in 1867 and located at Ross and D streets. At the time of this merger, the membership decided to use the site on South Front Street as their new home given its larger size and adjoining properties. With membership declining, the decision was made to downsize and move to a more appropriate size space for worship. On Easter 2010,the congregation began meeting at 140 Ross Ave., just a block from First UCC's origin. The Front Street property was given to another ministry and continues to spread the Good News.
St. John Church had originally been a German Evangelical church and First Church, a German Reformed congregation. Those two denominations had merged in 1932 to form a new denomination, the German Evangelical and Reformed churches. Later, in 1957, this new denomination merged with the Congregation Christian churches to form our current denomination, the United Church of Christ.
Pastor: Rev. Sam Wyatt - Pastor
Staff:
| Kathy Ullrich - | Office Manager |
| Cully Bell - | Pianist |
