New UCC president plans `radical inclusivity’

(RNS) The Rev. Geoffrey Black said he has a plan for the United Church of Christ’s long-term membership loss: more people. The newly elected president and general minister of the 1.1-million member UCC said while some continued decline is inevitable, “radical inclusivity” can help turn it around. “There are lots of people who would like […]

(RNS) The Rev. Geoffrey Black said he has a plan for the United Church of Christ’s long-term membership loss: more people.

The newly elected president and general minister of the 1.1-million member UCC said while some continued decline is inevitable, “radical inclusivity” can help turn it around.

“There are lots of people who would like to be a part of a church, but a church that will allow all kinds of people,” Black said during the UCC’s recent General Synod in Grand Rapids, Mich. “We’re trying to find ways to speak to 21st-century people, many of whom have never had any relationship with the Christian faith.”


Black, the second African-American to head the UCC, was the only nominee to succeed the Rev. John Thomas as head of the Cleveland-based church. Thomas was appointed a special adviser to the president of Chicago Theological Seminary.

Black said he wants to spread the UCC’s inclusive message through more promotion. The UCC’s “God Is Still Speaking” TV campaign has already gained attention with its provocative ads, which Black said is one way “to tell the world our story and invite people to be a part of it.”

Black, who takes office Oct. 1, has headed the UCC’s New York Conference since 2000. Prior to that, he was a church pastor for 15 years, a university chaplain and worked in the UCC’s Office for Church Life and Leadership.

A Philadelphia native, Black was raised Baptist and his father was a church deacon. Black majored in religious studies at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and went on to Yale Divinity School and ordination in the American Baptist Church in 1976. The next year, he joined the UCC as an associate minister, “where I felt much more at home,” he said.

Becoming UCC president is “not something I started out aspiring to do,” he added, but said he is excited by the position and the church.

“I am excited about the United Church of Christ because I think we are in a position to be of service to the world,” he told a gathering of UCC delegates.


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