Rev Paige's Corner: Church Beyond the Numbers
I am home from General Synod after 5 days in the Kansas City Convention Center filled with worship, debates, Keynotes, workshops, reconneting with friends and lots of learning. I was unexpectedly promoted from visitor status to delegate states to replace a last moment person in the NH delegation who was unable to come. While there is much that I can share about what happened at Synod - some of which will likely happen in the days ahead - I wanted to shared some words shared by our General Minister and President, the Rev Dr Karen Georgia Thompson in her State of the Church address. These excerpts come from the UC News article:
"The United Church of Christ has never been a numbers-first denomination. We’ve long understood that faithfulness doesn’t always come dressed in Sunday morning attendance or perfectly balanced budgets. But in a world obsessed with quantification, it’s easy to let the narrative of decline overshadow the deeper story we are called to tell. Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, UCC General Minister and President/CEO offered a reflection on the state of the church that moves beyond metrics into something far more spiritual and urgent: a reckoning with who we say we are, and what we’re truly called to be.....
"Because the church is not just a church of empty pews. It is the living witness of a different kind of Christianity—one that shows up in addiction counseling, mutual aid, child care, food justice, refugee accompaniment, prison visitation, and grief work. The stories of the UCC are written in casseroles and protest signs, in community fridges and quiet moments of pastoral presence that never get recorded in a metric report.
"The church is being called into deeper spiritual living—a faith that does more than survive. A faith that wades into deeper water in search of the divine.
This is what it means to be UCC in 2025.
Not perfect.
Not finished.
Not dying.
But discerning.
Alive.
Living beyond the numbers."
I deeply appreciated Rev Thompson's reflections. I think they are an important reminder of how God is working in our midst and making an impact in our communities.
With blessings!
Rev Paige Besse-Rankin
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