Excerpts from Address of Dr. Paul H. Sherry, president of the
United Church of Christ, at the 19th General Synod of the United
Church of Christ (July 15-20, 1993) in St. Louis, Mo.

I believe, in these days, that God is calling the United Church
of Christ to a very special vocation. I believe that God is
calling us to be a ``safe space,'' a ``sacred space,'' wherein
all of us can find a home. Rejection is abroad in this land.
Alienation is abroad in this land. We are increasingly isolated
from one another. Hostilities among race and class and condition
deny and threaten to destroy. In this time, in this place, God is
calling the United Church of Christ to be and to become a
community of embrace. And as we are and become that community, we
are and become an outpost for God's coming reign.

I have been criticized by some in recent days because Mary and I
participated in the March in Washington on behalf of human and
civil rights for gay and lesbian people. Mary and I both
appreciate that this is a difficult issue for many--we respect
those who are in a different place than we are--but we believe
also the God would not have had us do otherwise. We believe God
was and is calling us to witness to the fully inclusive church
and fully inclusive society that God desires for us all, a
beloved community of justice and mercy and peace for all people
The United Church of Christ: a ``safe space,'' a ``sacred
space,'' a community of embrace, for as we embrace, so shall we
live. Scripture says it well: ``. . . love one another; for the
one who loves another has fulfilled the law'' (Romans 13:8). In
love, let us walk the walk of faithfulness.

Some months ago, while in a hotel room here in St. Louis, I
received a phone call, late at night, from a woman who wanted to
thank the United Church of Christ for helping save her life. She
did not feel free to give me her name but she said, as a lesbian
woman, rejected by so many, she had twice sought to take her
life. Only in recent months, through the affirmation of a pastor
and laypeople of a United Church of Christ congregation, had she
begun to see her way to the future. That woman, that pastor and
that congregation are on the way to the Promised Land.

[The United Church of Christ, with 1.6 million members in 6,400
congregations, is a 1957 union of the Evangelical and Reformed
Church and the Congregational Christian Churches.]

Andrew Lang
Office of Communication
United Church of Christ
Cleveland, Ohio
langa@ucc.org