No
Matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, You Are Welcome
Here!
If
you visit another church - or come from another church, please give
us some feedback! Click
Here
St.
James United Church of Christ is a vibrant, family oriented community
of faith in the heart of Hamburg, a suburb on the south side of Buffalo,
New York. Our congregation numbers just over 500 members, but that only
tells part of the story…
The congregation began worshipping in 1853 as St. Jacob's German Evangelical
Church. They worshipped and studied using the German language until
about 1920 when they made the transition to English. Our current sanctuary
was built in 1925 and renovated in 1970. A Christian Education Building
was added in 1958, and a new entryway and an elevator in 1998.
Today St. James is a vibrant, lively, church in a friendly suburban
community. We have an active Sunday School program with over a hundred
children enrolled. Our middle high and senior high youth meet regularly.
We have a children's choir, youth choir and our adult choir. Typically
the Chancel Choir (adults) sings twice a month, while the children's
and youth choirs each sing once a month.
A former parsonage has been turned into a center for our senior high
youth called The House @ St. James Place. The house is open for youth
Friday and Saturday evenings each week, as well as for other activities
that they plan, and of course their Sunday School class each week.
One local mission project that the church has undertaken is to operate
a Day Care Center within the church building. The center is called TLC
(Tender Loving ChildCare) and has successfully been providing a low
cost, high quality child care option within the Hamburg community.
St. James also sponsors a missionary in Lesotho, Southern Africa. Jeanette
Samter has touched thousands upon thousands of lives in this impoverished
nation, and is universally acknowledged as a positive force in a nation
that so desperately needs them.
These are but a few of the words which describe this church family and
our efforts to be faithful. We invite you to come and worship with us,
for worship is indeed the solid foundation for our lives, both as individuals
and as a community of faith.
"Never place a period
where God has placed a comma." Gracie Allen 
History
of the United Church of Christ
The
United Church of Christ came into being in 1957 with the union of two
Protestant denominations: the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the
Congregational Christian Churches. Each of these was, in turn, the result
of a union of two earlier denominations.
The Congregational Churches were organized when the Pilgrims of Plymouth
Plantation (1620) and the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629)
acknowledged their essential unity in the Cambridge Platform of 1648.
The Reformed church in the United States traced its beginnings to congregations
of German settlers in Pennsylvania founded from 1725 on. Later, its
ranks were swelled by Reformed folk from Switzerland and other countries.
The Christian Churches sprang up in the late 1700s and early 1800s in
reaction to the theological and organizational rigidity of the Methodist,
Presbyterian, and Baptist churches of the time.
The Evangelical Synod of North America traced its beginning to an association
of German Evangelical pastors in Missouri. This association, founded
in 1840, reflected the 1817 union of Lutheran and Reformed churches
in Germany.
Through the years, members of other groups such as Native Americans,
African Americans, Asian Americans, Volga Germans, Armenians, Hungarians,
and Hispanic Americans have joined with the four earlier groups. Thus
the United Church of Christ celebrates and continues a wide variety
of traditions in its common life.
"The United Church of Christ acknowledges as its sole head, Jesus Christ,
Son of God and Saviour. It acknowledges as kindred in Christ all who
share in this confession. It looks to the Word of God in the Scriptures,
and to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, to prosper its creative
and redemptive work in the world. It claims as its own the faith of
the historic Church expressed in the ancient creeds and reclaimed in
the basic insights of the Protestant Reformers. It affirms the responsibility
of the Church in each generation to make this faith its own in reality
of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart
before God. In accordance with the teaching of our Lord and the practice
prevailing among evangelical Christians, it recognizes two sacraments:
Baptism and the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion.
|
-From the Preamble to the Constitution
of the United Church of Christ
|
If you think getting up Sunday morning is hard, try
RISING from the DEAD.
