How and why Christ the Healer UCC is different than the Church you met before.
Just a week or two gone by, not long after the take over of Afghanistan, there was a radio interview with an MIT professor who had devoted his life to the study of politics behind war and what those political realities meant. The upshot of that talk revealed a principle deeper than explaining how wars are thought of. It revealed how “Profeshinals” in a beleaguered activity are continuously motivated to report to the interested public shadings of truth, cherry-picked facts, best faces on the situation, and outright lies. The way that every U.S. President, from Bush to Biden, every press secretary, every state department spokesperson, and every commanding general has felt obligated to do from the day that America invaded that country. Those fonts of official information’s official interests strenuously conflicted with the interests of truth-telling
So here is our point. The main line of the Christian Church has, for over fifty years been facing statistics showing decade over decade, year after year shrinking in membership. No one in charge seemed to know why other than to blame the surrounding culture. The institutional response has been a fifty-year snowstorm of articles, books, videos, and forums on how currently configured Christian congregations should re-grow themselves using this nifty tactic or that. Always offered with self-assurance, expert opinions, and hope. And by and large, absolutely nothing works for everyone, and those few who do get results do so for a few years, and then something else seems to go wrong, and the slide in numbers starts again. Still, the advice pours out from on high.
Twenty-five years ago CtHUCC started as a focus group of utterly unchurched individuals who had been invited to talk about what they would need to nurture their own spiritual growth and development. Our commitment was not to do something that experts considered “Right,” but to do our collective best, and make “New” mistakes along the way. We would be fearless. We would be diligent. We would pay close attention to what happened, and change course accordingly. We had no pre-determined formula, and no conflicting interest to be taken into consideration. We simply asked questions and explored. Today we have collected reams of answers and vast territories of explored terrain, Biblical, in the Christian tradition, Neuro-psycho-theological, and mystical. Yet still, we are seeking to learn as we make available to our members the gleanings, both scintillating and humble, found through our always fascinating journey of spiritual adventure. We are a learning church, and we are delighted to be a teaching church. Want to come along?