A New Church Find

This is what I'm talking about these days--a church that embraces plurality in the name of their unity, cares about the poor, is lead by women, and is open and affirming to everyone! United Parish Church of Brookline, MA just accounted for the 251st reason that I want to move to Boston! It's a merger of three churches originally in Brookline: American Baptist, United Methodist, and United Church of Christ, all of which were struggling on their own. They joined together in the '70's, maintain even today their separate denominational affiliations so that when someone joins, they pick which denomination they're joining, and they busy themselves with social work that extends well beyond the walls of their sanctuary. (Oddly enough, the Baptist Church was sold and deconstructed for a new development, and the Methodist church is now condos in the original structure, not an uncommon New England site at all!) Okay, the last thing is that the senior pastor graduated with her M.Div. from Harvard Div School where for her senior thesis thingy she did a project on New Monasticism in the late 80's. Pretty cool...