This January, I taught the History, Theology and Polity of United Church of Christ Polity to seminarians at Chicago Theological Seminary. When I say “at,” I use the term loosely. The class, originally planned as an intensive week in person in Hyde Park, switched to online, so my students were zooming in from Texas to Rhode Island. Their religious backgrounds also spanned a distance and yet they had all been led by the Holy Spirit to take this class as part of their discernment if they are called to preach, teach and lead our people. We had people raised Southern Baptist, Wesleyan, Roman Catholic, Nondenominational, or without much religion at all, each of them bringing the gifts and the struggles of their past spiritual lives into their new home under the big tent we call the United Church of Christ. You get the picture. My students were as big a bunch of “mutts” as the average UCC congregation in the Michigan Conference.  Read More