Basic Information On The Tempe United Church Of Christ

By Elizabeth Edwards


The Protestant Christian Denomination serves as the foundation upon which the Temple United Church was formed. Tempe United Church of Christ has grown tremendously, having established more than five thousand branches and bringing in several millions of people. The body puts into great concern issues such as civil rights and interfaith efforts.

Two Protestant Churches merged up to form the unit and these are the Evangelical and Reformed temple and the General Council of that Congregational Christian Churches. This merge up attracted close to two million new members. Four years after the coalition, the denomination went ahead and came up with its own constitution and the laws to follow across all the constituent churches.

The body has not put regulations on a particular way of worship across its churches as they are allowed different formats of worshiping depending on a wide range of things. However, there are certain common beliefs shared among all of them such as the belief in evangelism. Furthermore, they all share a common belief of having a liberal mind when understanding how the Bible directly relates to our present life despite it being written a long time ago.

Aside from the Bible, the other form of literature in the denomination offers freedom in all walks and thinking of congregants. The body recognizes Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior as that lead within the whole organization. On top of that it agrees that there are two forms of sacraments, The Communion and Baptism and also acknowledges the presence of the Holy Spirit.

One belief that the body holds quite close is the need to be in unity and offer a unifying factor across the world. For this reason, it has involved itself in an organization that aims at uniting other nine protestant denominations across America. It has also been part of a global council that aims at creating common theological views across the different churches.

The most recent unison was with the United temple of Canada and it was aimed at creating similar ways of participating together in missions, ministry and worship. In the unison, the two denominations could take similar sacraments and be preached to by all the ministers within the unit. In addition, Muslims and Jewish communities have been included in several agreements by the body.

The local temple or what is mostly referred to as that congregation is the basic unit of whole denomination. All the local churches are allowed their own forms of governance as they are allowed to come up with their individual governing structures. As a result, the ways of governance vary across the churches, in that some have one central council and others have different boards.

The congregants within the body have acquired a great deal of freedom of worship due to the already set standards. The institution has however faced some criticisms in matters of political views, theological differences and social issues. Some of these social issues that have been matters of concern include the favoritism of same sex marriage by the body and allowing of campaigns in their mass services.




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