SCUCC History

Founding
Our church was founded in 1959 during a period of rapid population growth in Scottsdale. The first worship services were held at Messinger Chapel on Indian School Road. Rev. Lee J Smallsreed, Jr., a man of great vision and faith, was the founding pastor and served the congregation until 1967.

Social Justice is part of our heritage
We have historically supported a wide variety of social justice issues, which have formed part of the “personality” of the church. Our pastoral leadership was supportive of the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. As part of a group of UCC clergymen who helped with voter registration in the South, our first minister, the Rev. Lee J. Smallsreed, took a part of his vacation in 1964 to work with a group of students engaged in the Mississippi Summer Project to register black voters.

Later, when the surrounding community in Scottsdale sought to exclude a black family from settling in our local neighborhood, our congregation took a stand in support of the family’s right to seek housing in the area. They later joined the church.

The same Rev. Smallsreed, when seeking membership on the Scottsdale School Board, outwardly campaigned for participation in federal programs which would assist our public schools, a view which at the time was frowned upon by many citizens of the community. Although unsuccessful in the election, Rev. Smallsreed’s actions caused this community to explore new approaches in the funding of our public schools.

Personality of the church
From its beginnings the church has had a personality of compassion and outreach. Visitors often comment on what a friendly church we are.

Our mission outreach has always been a strong element in the life of the church. The list of past and current outreach projects is long and varied and includes both domestic and international organizations.

Music has also always been an important part of our church life, and we currently bring to our traditional service outstanding musicians from the Phoenix Symphony and elsewhere. At the Studio service we have a live band with contemporary jazz.

Our church is also a prayerful church. We have a prayer group that has met regularly for over 15 years, and also an active prayer line. Prayer retreats have been a frequent feature over the years.

Church facilities
The current site was purchased in 1961 and our first building, the Lee J. Smallsreed, Jr. Education Building, was completed in 1962.

In order to raise funds for the expansion of our facilities, we sold three of our five acres of land. The sanctuary building was completed in 1971 and at that time membership had grown to 263.

From 1972 until 2006 we have leased the Smallsreed Building to various preschool organizations to generate revenue needed to carry out our ministries. In 2005 during our Vision 2010 process we determined and voted that we needed to take back the Smallsreed Building to nurture our expanding and exciting programs and ministry, particularly in spirituality and the arts.

Growth
Rev. Alan B. Bond was pastor from 1974 – 1987, and during his tenure several significant events occurred, including the burning of the mortgage on the Smallsreed Building in late 1976.

On Labor Day weekend, 1981, sixty members attended our first Mingus Mountain Campout, an annual event that has continued ever since.

In 1982, our first handbell choir was formed and, in 1984, we were able to burn the mortgages to our Sanctuary and Parsonage. By 1985, our membership had climbed to 355, an all-time high.

To accommodate this growth our Fellowship Hall building was completed in 1988.

In 1994 we were honored by having our newsletter, Scottsdata, recognized as the best newsletter among UCC churches nationwide.

In 1995 our church was selected to host the Annual meeting of the UCC Southwest Conference.

Vitality
In September of 1995 Rev. Dr. Eric Elnes accepted a call to become the fifth Pastor of SCUCC. Under Rev. Elnes’s leadership many new activities and ministries have been initiated.

• B.E.A.C.H. (Bible Education and Activities at our Church home), a Logos program promoting education, nurture and spiritual growth of our children and youth through Christian relationship.
• Our parsonage, which had been leased since 1992 was sold in 1997, a transaction which allowed us to retire several debts and to establish an Endowment Fund for the church.
• Shortly after Christmas in 1997, our church sponsored a two-week tour of the Holy Land led by Rev. Elnes - an activity which was not only greatly beneficially theologically and spiritually to those who went but also helped to make our church even better known in the area. This trip was followed two years later with a congregational pilgrimage to Greece and Turkey.
• Alt.faith services directed at teens introduced new concepts of dialog with contemporary culture using a multi-media approach. These were held on the first Sunday evening of each month for over two years.

Open and Affirming
In the late 90’s, members of an SCUCC Constitution rewriting team created a new preamble to the Constitution that sought to establish the vision, mission and identity of our church. The section entitled; The World: Our Life with Others was designed to include an Open and Affirming statement. The members of the team knew that they could not just write a statement and expect that it would be accepted by the congregation. They recognized that prayer, study and conversation needed to precede its acceptance.

A Bible study program led by our minister Rev. Dr. Eric Elnes was designed and offered to the congregation. It explored what the Bible says and what it doesn’t say about homosexuality. Participants in the study learned about the context surrounding the biblical statements that are often used to condemn homosexuality and most importantly during the course of the study they met and heard the stories of two lesbian women. The prayers and study resulted in not only the acceptance of the statement in our constitution in 1998 but a public declaration with other UCC churches that people of all sexual orientations are welcome in the full life and ministry of our church.

SCUCC Columbarium/Memorial Garden
The SCUCC Columbarium/Memorial Garden located east of the Fellowship Hall contains the cremated remains of members and friends of the church who have chosen to purchase a niche. In the niche is an urn with the cremains. The niche has a red granite cover with the deceased’s vital statistics engraved on it. The Columbarium/Memorial Garden is akin to a churchyard cemetery found in New England and the Old South as well as in Europe.

Our Columbarium/Memorial garden was planned and seriously discussed from 1995 to 2000. In early 2001 construction started and the Columbarium/Memorial Garden was dedicated Memorial Day weekend that year. A primary financial supporter and dreamer for the project is Helen Henderson, and the plaque “In the Garden” inside the Columbarium honors Helen and Clarence Henderson.

Oh My God!
In November of 1999 our church developed ” A Modest Proposal for renewing Mainline Christian Worship and Ministry,” and as a result received a grant of approximately $500K.

The key elements of this project were:

• Creation and development of the Studio worship service
• Creation of the Oasis small interest group infrastructure
• Integration of arts and technology into education programs
• Creation of a web based community ministry.
• Delivery of workshops and materials in support of wider mission
• Renewing and equipping the wider church

We began The Studio worship service in 2000.

By 2002 we had over 20 active Oasis groups.

By 2002 we had designed and launched our SCUCC web site.

As a result of our cutting edge explorations with experiential worship we have had many visitors from all over the country come to observe and experience The Studio for themselves, and SCUCC has been cited in several publications as a leader in innovative worship. The Rev. Tex Sample says of us “This is truly an extraordinary congregation. Their worship event, called The Studio, is one of the most theologically sound, biblically grounded, creative, multisensory and multimedia worship experiences I know.”

In 2004 Dr. Elnes with dialog and input from the congregation published a book based on some of our fundamental insights about this new paradigm for worship. The book is called Igniting Worship Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. In addition to text on the biblical and theological background of experiential worship, the process and the resources used, it also includes services & video clips on a DVD of an eight-week series that we held at SCUCC specifically on the seven deadly sins and seven lively virtues.

SCUCC ’s Role in Creating and Supporting CrossWalk America’s “Walk Across America 2006”
In August of 2004, Dr. Elnes returned from a three-month sabbatical in northern Ethiopia and southern India to find Scottsdale Congregational UCC in turmoil. We hadn’t suffered from his absence (indeed we had wonderful pastoral and lay leadership while he was away). Rather, many in the congregation were fed up with the immense influence right-wing Christian extremists had gained and held over both faith and society for many years. As one congregation member put it, “I’m tired of being a ‘Christian, but …’ – meaning she was tired of having to apologize for her Christian beliefs to her friends and acquaintances saying, “I’m a Christian but I love people of other faiths … but I love the earth and its ecosystems … but I love gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons … but I affirm the separation of church and state,” and so on. Congregation members openly wondered about what the future of Christian faith in America would be if all the public knew were the extremist voices.

To make a very long story short, Dr. Elnes and Rebecca Glenn – a lay leader from our church – spearheaded an effort to create a new, national, non-profit organization called CrossWalk America. CrossWalk America’s first project was to create a brief summary articulating the essence of moderate/progressive Christian faith. This document, which is now known around the world as The Phoenix Affirmations, was ultimately created by clergy, laypeople, biblical scholars and theologians representing every mainstream denomination from around the country. Organized around the Three Great Loves that Jesus identifies as love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self, the Phoenix Affirmations are being studied, discussed, and celebrated in and outside of churches in the United States and Canada, and as far away as Great Britain, France and Australia (probably many other countries as well!).

Having created this document, for which Dr. Elnes served as chief editor and later wrote a book to support (The Phoenix Affirmations: A New Vision for the Future of Christianity), CrossWalk America’s second major project was to walk the Affirmations across the country in a 2,500 mile walk from Phoenix to Washington, DC! This Walk started on Easter Sunday (April 16 th), 2006 and ended on September 3 rd. Core walkers and support people from our church (those who participated in the whole journey) included Rebecca Glenn, Ray Gentry, Chris Brown, and Eric Elnes. In addition, a number of SCUCCers helped as key support team “back home.” Ray Steiner served as CrossWalk America’s Communications Director and on the Board of Directors. Donna Murphy served as Logistics Lead. Dorie Roepke served as Volunteer Coordinator and on the Board of Directors, and Scott Logan served on the Board and as Director of Strategic Relations. Many others served either as part of their teams or as walkers for part of the way.

Over the course of The Walk, the core team was hosted by 150 churches and seminaries, stayed in over 200 homes, met face-to-face with nearly 12,000 people, were featured in a large number of local and regional newspapers papers, radio stations, on PBS, in national magazines, and on numerous blogs. Their progress was monitored by hundreds of thousands of people who visited the CrossWalk America Web site and blog.

The Walk is the focus of a new book by Dr. Elnes called Asphalt Jesus: Discovering a New Christian Faith on the Highways of America (published by Jossey-Bass) due out in 2007.

Scottsdale Congregational UCC is proud to have played a key role in the formation of CrossWalk America and its Walk Across America 2006, which Dr. James Forbes (Senior Pastor, Riverside Church, NYC) has referred to as being “a spark that may very well be the next Great Awakening.”