Welcome to Our Little Church
We invite you to come worship with us and see how we do church. You'll find a pastor who doesn't stay put in the pulpit, but likes to preach from the aisle.
You'll find people who love to sing and do so with gusto, accompanied by guitar or piano, or a pipe organ built and tended by a member of our congregation. You'll find a special time for children that includes a ringing of bells, so we can listen to God in the silence that follows. You'll find flowers and beauty in our historic building.
In our church, you will find ideas to stimulate your thinking and surprising new understandings that can come from reaching deep into the history and mystery of the scriptures.
We are an Open and Affirming Congregaton of the United Church of Christ. For information on the United Church of Christ, click the links below.
The United Church of Christ Home Page
The Northern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ
News and Upcoming Events
Blessing of the Animals October 3
Our annual Blessing of the Animals will once again take place on the Sunday closest to St. Francis of Assisi’s birthday, which is, as usual, also World Communion Sunday, Oct. 3. It is a fitting reminder that, for many of us, our animal companions are a very real part of our families and deserve to be blessed and welcomed into our midst on this occasion when the whole world is reminded that we are one communion family.
You are invited to bring your dogs (on leashes), your cats (in carrying cases), your birds, gerbils, rats, snakes and hamsters all in appropriate carriers. For more information and to read an essay about one of our most blessed animal companions, CLICK HERE.
Chocolate Fest
On Oct. 8 and 9, 2010, the Congregational Church of Belmont will present its 28th annual Chocolate Fest. Twenty different vendors of chocolate wares (ice cream, gelato, brownies, cakes, cookies, truffles and candy of every sort, as well as chunks of pure chocolate) will offer samples for tasting for the 1,000 guests. For more information, CLICK HERE.
Building a Stronger Faith
By Jim Burklo
"If a student at a faith-based institution gives up her faith, convinced that it’s intellectually untenable, has that institution failed? Has it succeeded? What if that happens at a secular institution?"
This is one of the questions posed for discussion at a conference I'll be attending today at Westmont College, an evangelical Christian school in Santa Barbara. As I prepared for this meeting, I considered the many theological conversations I've had with students over the years, when I worked as ecumenical Protestant campus minister at Stanford, and now as associate dean of religious life at USC. Students continue to come through my door, one after another, realizing that the dogmas and doctrines in which they were raised do not make sense to them after they have been exposed to a broad academic university curriculum.
They take literature and history courses, and realize that the Bible and other religious texts were written by real human beings who had axes to grind, points of view colored by their contexts. They study the sciences and grow increasingly uncomfortable with religion that demands belief in the supernatural.
They meet gay and lesbian people who would have been shunned or closeted in their home churches, and realize that they are just folks like themselves, expressing the sexual orientation with which they were born. They get to know practitioners of other religions, and discover that their faiths are as good for their followers as their own is for them. . .
For the complete article, CLICK HERE.
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