How We Believe
At the United Parish, we hear a call to ‘do’ and ‘be’ church rather than just go to church.
Our life together flows from our worship together—a time when we connect with God and one another and leave transformed, enriched and ready to engage the world in new ways. We see belief as a process of giving our hearts, giving our lives over to God; a process of shaping our lives on the model of Jesus who called us to love God with our whole beings and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
We are a progressive community that draws direction and meaning from the Bible and includes faith and reason as gifts from God that help us understand and interpret sacred texts. We draw from many different Christian traditions including American Baptist, United Methodist and the United Church of Christ. We respect the dignity of ALL religious traditions.
We follow the model of Jesus and practice radical and extravagant hospitality, welcoming all who wish to journey with us. We celebrate people regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, marital status, social location, physical ability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression because all are the beloved children of God. How we read scripture tells us that we need everyone if we are ever to truly be the one body we are called to be.
United Parish is a place where each person is invited to discern or uncover one’s call—that is, to grow in understanding of the passions, gifts and needs that one brings to the community. We are devoted to providing the resources to equip each person with new tools and skills for the personal and communal work of spiritual discernment. This may involve serving our own members, or our Brookline neighbors, or the greater world. Or just figuring out how to be our most authentic selves.
We see believing as a lifelong, unfolding, beautiful process of becoming who God calls each of us to be as individuals and as a church. It is an exciting, invigorating, transforming and life-giving process that we undertake with joy, gratitude and hope.
