Welcome!
    As the pastor of First St. John United Church of Christ, I want to welcome you to this fellowship of Christians. From my own experience here since October 2000 I can tell you that among this group of committed followers of Jesus you will find:

•  Friends you can count on to share the challenges and joys of life
• a Spirit of trust, respect, community and hope
• the Joy of belonging to a diverse community of faith where we serve each other and our community

     That’s First St. John as I know it and as many others do as well.   We are also gladly a part of the United Church of Christ denomination. This denomination is committed to tearing down walls that divide Christians, making Christ’s love known to all people, and ensuring that God’s justice reigns among and for all people regardless of who they are. To reinforce these commitments, we have two mottos: “That They May All Be One,” emphasizing Christian unity and cooperation; and “To Believe Is To Care . . . To Care Is To Do,” emphasizing that our faith must be translated into deeds of love and mercy toward our fellow human beings.

    I offer to you the following information about Who We Are, What We Believe and Where We Are Going. By reading this you can get to know us better and can seriously consider whether you will want to become an active participant in this Christian community.

   Who Are We?  
     Really, we’re very young and still growing!   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 on this present site 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 this site on South Front Street as their new home given its larger size and adjoining properties.

     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.

   What Do We Believe?
     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.

   Where Are We Going?
     While we are a young church, it is also true that we are a very old “mainline” church, one of the original churches of the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s AD. Like all mainline churches we have constantly been growing smaller in numbers and influence over the last 50 years. We know that no new simple program, no new super pastor, and no new building will automatically reverse that trend. Only the work of God’s spirit alive in his followers can enable his church to prosper and bring many more into His kingdom.

    We know that our future is in God’s hands. We know that we must be open to His leading us in new directions if He is to reach a new generation. Therefore we are making ourselves open to new ideas about our style of worship and music, to the importance of preaching being relevant to the needs of people today, and to the reality that many individuals younger than 35, and especially those younger than 20, cannot relate well to our traditional way of doing church. That’s true especially because many in this age group have had no experience with church.

    God, we believe, is challenging us to consider offering options for worship, new classes and support groups that new people can easily fit into, and new ways of administering the church so that God’s spirit is in charge and not our own egos. These next years promise to be very challenging and exciting as we together watch God take this young but old church and remake it into a powerful transforming force in our lives and in the life of this community. 

   Join Us!
     We hope you will seriously consider joining us in the great adventure God has in store for us as, together with Him and the church throughout the world, we transform the world into the Kingdom of Heaven.