Liberal United Church of Christ sends donation to ELCA

Courtesy of The Lutheran, official magazine of the ELCA:

5/5/2010
UCC: $50,000 gift to Lutheran seminary
First United Church of Christ (UCC), Bridgeport, Conn., donated $50,000 each to the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and to the UCC-affiliated Lancaster Theological Seminary May 2. The ELCA and the UCC are full communion partners.

"These gifts acknowledge our oneness in Christ and the ministry that is ours," said Karen DeWerth-Wamester, an ELCA pastor serving at First UCC.

Faced with a dwindling membership, the congregation, founded in 1894 by Hungarian immigrants, sold its building in 2006 to a Seventh Day Adventist Church, with the agreement that the UCC congregation could worship there, rent-free, for another 20 years. Funds from the sale have allowed the congregation to give and minister in new ways.

"We're in a unique position [to give]," Chief Elder Nancy Szwejkowski said in a UCC Connecticut Conference news release. "My theory is that it doesn't do any good sitting in the bank."

"What a wonderful witness to the full communion agreement for the First United Church of Christ to give a generous gift to the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia," said LTSP President Philip D. Krey. "Our traditions have grown together, our students study together, our pastors like Pastor DeWerth-Wamester serve one another's congregations, and now we support one another in the preparation of leaders. Scores of thankful students and faculty will remember this Bridgeport congregation."

The congregation's gift will also be counted toward the ELCA New England Synod's goal of raising $1.5 million for the seminary, and the seminary, in turn, will name a seminar room in its Brossman Center in honor of First UCC.

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All I can say is...How nice! It's a gift from a dying church. They now have money to give now that they've lost their church building. This is progress.