Maggie's Farm

John the River--There are a couple of Presbyterian denominations that are still solid you may wish to try out, if there are any around your area. As you probably know, the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians are close cousins, originally not differing in their theology but in their form of church government. (Congregationalists believed in each church being independent and run by a church council of some type; Presbyterians believed in government by elders, both in the church's session and in larger associations of churches known as presbyteries. But there has always been a lot of crossover--for example, Jonathan Edwards served as a pastor in both Presbyterian and Congregational churches.)

One you don't want is the liberal Presbyterian Church USA (known as PCUSA) that has gone the same route as the UCC and is shedding members and churches rapidly (it is about half the size it was 20 years ago). There are still some solid PCUSA churches, but they are going to be rarer and rarer, and most are on their way out, or some are folding shop. But with some exceptions, in the PCUSA you are going to get the exact same atmosphere as the present UCC (including a revisionist hymn book).

But there are 3 other Presbyterian denominations, and each of these is growing. The most conservative is the Presbyterian Church in America, or PCA. They still take traditional Presbyterianism seriously, and also do not ordain women. But they have some excellent preachers and teachers such as Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City, and of course R.C. Sproul. Worship styles can range from very traditional to the modern rock band (but again, the theology is quite traditional). The PCA was originally formed out of those churches that did not agree with the merger of the Northern and Southern Presbyterian churches that formed the PCUSA; they believed that would lead to a too liberal church (and they were right).

The next is the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. You will probably find that quite similar to your old Congo church before it became politicized. One sticking issue for some people is that some of their presbyteries will allow women pastors, others won't. The EPC was a break-off from the PCUSA when it started to become liberal for a lot of folks.

The third denomination is known as ECO, or the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. (Yeah I know, the acronym doesn't match with the name, but the story why is too long to repeat here). It is only a couple of years old at this point but is growing rapidly. This is largely made up of the PCUSA evangelical churches that have left PCUSA in the past several years and formed their own denomination. Again, the flavor is probably a lot like your old Congo church. ECO is very interested in things like church planting and active evangelism to the unchurched and these churches tend to be very active in terms of membership involvement, since most of them have had to be unified enough to go through the pain of leaving the PCUSA, which is a difficult process.

My prediction is that within the next five years the UCC and PCUSA will merge to try keep their numbers up. I also think at some point, the EPC and ECO will merge although that will probably be a fair number of years from now. But the EPC and ECO churches get along well with each other, and both get along tolerably well with the PCA churches (although PCA'ers might think the EPC'ers and ECO'ers are liberals by comparison).

But if none of these are available, I would agree to try the Baptists. They have a lot of solid churches, and the preaching is often very good. (But unless you were baptized as an adult, you will have to get re-baptized if you want to become a member).