April 2009
I get a real kick out of seeing young people maturing and gaining knowledge and confidence. You can imagine then, what a thrill it was attending Chapman University Founders Day on March 21. Barbie, Jacob and I, along with Mary Belle Carter and Domenick Sforza represented Redlands UCC in Orange as part of a day that starred over 80 DOC (Disciples on Campus) students. They coordinated, led, sang, acted, staffed, toured, created video, played instruments, ushered, conversed and did much, much more to make it a very enjoyable day for hundreds of UCC and Disciples of Christ attendees. In a word, the students were amazing! (I was especially proud of Sarah’s involvement as a member of the planning committee and part of the 2009-10 DOC Leadership Board.)
Redlands United Church of Christ is a Partner Congregation with Chapman, as are about 15 other UCC congregations in the Southern California-Nevada conference, and the conference office itself. It’s a proud heritage of our denomination and our local congregation to be involved in education. The UCC and our predecessors have started and sustained dozens of colleges, universities and seminaries throughout our history. That includes not only the likes of Harvard and Yale, but also colleges and universities founded to offer educational access and opportunity for Blacks in the South: Dillard University, Fisk University, LeMoyne-Owen College, Huston-Tillotson College, Talladega College and Tougaloo College.
With this kind of educational legacy, it comes as no surprise that RUCC is very connected to the University of Redlands (despite its Baptist roots!) with many of our church members and friends on the university’s faculty and staff. Several folks work at other area colleges and universities. Many others work in the Redlands Unified School District and other neighboring schools. A few are home schooling. Several RUCC members are receiving financial assistance from our scholarship fund.
Education and the expanding of the mind are very important to us as individuals and as an institution. We encourage education and learning to take place every day in myriad ways. Our national UCC’s educational mission includes a statement that: “All the realities and needs of life are occasions for learning—e.g., dealing with personal and social crises of life; wrestling with issues of ethics; exploring the meaning of Christian vocation; assessing the impact of science, technology, economics, and politics upon individuals and nations; and recognizing and opposing injustice in every form.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. summed it up nicely when he said, “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.” I believe education—critical thinking—is an important part of being open to our still-speaking God. It is when we open our minds to new thoughts, new ways of seeing our world and new ways of living our faith with our brothers and sisters, that we expand our own limited views to see all the way to God’s limitless horizon.
With optimism and hope,
Loring Fiske-Phillips
