The Umstead Park UCC Story
On March 28, 1999, North Raleigh United Church met for its first service of worship at Durant Road Middle School in Raleigh, NC. Funded by the United Church of Christ, ‘invitations’ to a new, progressive community of faith had been sent to almost 20,000 area households. 120 people attended this first gathering. Many of these were well-wishers from near and afar but also present were the tenacious ‘seeds’ of the future congregation.
Because the community would be governed by the congregation, over the course of the next several months the gathered worshippers began to write a covenant which could serve as a central document for the church. On October 3, 1999, we invited each other to sign the resulting Covenant and thus become Covenant Partners. Over 70 persons signed that day. Covenant Partners continue to join us on a regular basis.
Leaders were elected from the membership and eight task forces chosen to carry out necessary duties. In January 1999 the congregation made other important decisions concerning priorities, chief among them to give the maximum possible to ministries beyond us. Since then, the NRUC/UPUCC community has designated many thousands of dollars to ministries outside of our church. In addition, we continually seek projects encouraging hands on involvement.
Happily, as we have grown, so have our ministries to children and youth. On August 26th, 2007 we held our first worship service at 8208 Brownleigh Drive, and hence our name changed to Umstead Park United Church of Christ. This building and location offered opportunities to move into our mission and ministry in new and exciting ways.
As we continue living into this congregationally-based community of faith, there is obviously much yet to be done. We are convinced that the God of love, justice, peace, and hope is very much at the center of what we do. We warmly invite all like-minded seekers to join us.
