About UCC

The United Church of Christ is a church of firsts—the first historically white church to ordain an African American, the first to ordain a woman, the first to ordain an openly gay man, the first Christian church to affirm the right of same-gender couples to marry.

The UCC is a diverse community of 5,000 churches and 1 million members held together by their covenantal promise to serve God in the co-creation of a just and sustainable world.

In the UCC, each congregation is autonomous, a member of the national church but not subject to it. The members of a congregation are its ultimate authority. It is covenant, a promise like a wedding vow to stay in the relationship, that keeps individuals, each church, and regional and national offices tied together.

It was formed by the merger in 1957 of four long-standing denominations:

• The Congregational Churches, which began in England and included the Puritans in New England;
• The Christian Church, which grew out of the Second Great Awakening in America;
• The Evangelical and Reformed Church, brought to America by German immigrants;
• The Reformed Churches formed in the Calvinist tradition in Switzerland, England, France and Germany

All four denominations subscribed to the reunifying trend during the early 20^th century.