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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 Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629) acknowledged their essential unity in the Cambridge Platform of 1648. The Reformed Church in the United State 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 American 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. We have been in the Boalsburg area since 1822. The present church building was built in 1862. It was then that our Durner Tracker Organ was installed. This historic instrument is still used at St. John’s every Sunday and is believed to be the only organ of its type still in frequent use today. Our church building was built two years before Emma Hunter and Sophie Keller placed flowers on the grave of Emma’s father, Dr. Reuben Hunter, who served as a surgeon in the Union Army during the Civil War. That act is believed to have given birth to Memorial Day and is repeated at the end of May each year in Boalsburg. Our St. John’s family is part of the family of humankind, part of the family known as the Church of Jesus Christ, and part of the denominational family known as the United Church of Christ. Our denominational roots reach back to the Reformation of Germany and Switzerland and to our Pilgrim and Puritan ancestors who left the shores of England to establish a colony in the new world. In 1957, the four streams of Evangelical and Reformed, Congregation and Christian merged together to form the United Church of Christ. We are proud of our family, and we will continue to strive to serve Jesus the Christ in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania and throughout the world. What We Believe: Our belief finds expression in the historic creeds of the Christian Church in the Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ. Statement of Faith: We believe in God, the Eternal Spirit, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and our Father, and to his deeds we testify: He calls the worlds into being, creates man in his own image and sets before him the ways of life and death. He seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin. He judges men and nations by his righteous will declared through prophets and apostles. In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Lord, he has come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death, and reconciling the world to himself. He bestows upon us his Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the Church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races. He calls us into his Church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil, to share in Christ's baptism and eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory. He promises to all who trust him forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, his presence in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in his kingdom which has no end. Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto him. Amen. We celebrate two sacraments- Baptism and the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion |