HARTFORD -- The Connecticut Conference released a new Vantage Point video today. In this episode, the Rev. Kent J. Siladi speaks with the Rev. Jocelyn Gardner Spencer, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Woodstock and member of the CT Conference Board of Directors, about a proposal to create a new conference combining the Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island conferences of the United Church of Christ.
The Boards of Directors of the Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island conferences voted unanimously in January to commit to forming a new Conference to minister and come together to make an impact as people of faith. They will ask the Annual Meetings of the three Conferences, being held together June 16 and 17, to endorse their intent to draft a proposal for a new Conference. The Boards would then bring that specific proposal to another joint Annual Meeting in 2018 for ratification.
In the video, Spencer says of the concept of joining together: "It's a new thing and its an old thing. it's consistent with the call of Christ, It's consistent with the mission of the church ever since the beginning: connecting with those who we think of as other, expanding the boundaries of who is considered us."
"If you think about who Jesus spent time with, it was always the people who were on the margins, who were pushed to the outside. He was all about crossing the boundaries that society had imposed on people, so in some ways we are re-embracing or re-discovering something that's been in our DNA since the beginning."
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The Boards of Directors of the Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island conferences voted unanimously in January to commit to forming a new Conference to minister and come together to make an impact as people of faith. They will ask the Annual Meetings of the three Conferences, being held together June 16 and 17, to endorse their intent to draft a proposal for a new Conference. The Boards would then bring that specific proposal to another joint Annual Meeting in 2018 for ratification.
In the video, Spencer says of the concept of joining together: "It's a new thing and its an old thing. it's consistent with the call of Christ, It's consistent with the mission of the church ever since the beginning: connecting with those who we think of as other, expanding the boundaries of who is considered us."
"If you think about who Jesus spent time with, it was always the people who were on the margins, who were pushed to the outside. He was all about crossing the boundaries that society had imposed on people, so in some ways we are re-embracing or re-discovering something that's been in our DNA since the beginning."
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