Life Under the Big Tent: Moving Beyond Polarization to Possibility - A General Synod 2025 Reflection from Bry Brannan

I give thanks to God for DSF’s ecumenical spirit and generosity by offering me a stipend to be able to attend my first UCC General Synod in Kansas City, which allowed me to deepen denominational relationships and experience ways God is at work in my life. While at Synod, I felt a sense of integration and that I was with the people I needed to be with as I discern where and how I am called in this denomination. What delights me about the UCC is that we are figuring out what it means to live together in covenant with all of our collective contradictions under a “big tent.” Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, our General Minister and President, told us that there is “someone of everyone in the UCC,” and as I spent time with old and new friends, I think that’s true! In a pastoral way, Rev. Karen Georgia encouraged and cautioned us that our multitude of diversities in the UCC has the potential of being our biggest strength and yet also our downfall if we do not learn how to exist together under this big “united and uniting” non-creedal tent. 

Through Spirit’s provocation through our keynote speaker, Rev. Jennifer Butler, author of “Who Stole My Bible? Reclaiming Scripture as a Handbook for Resisting Tyranny,” I heard the invitation to find ways to lessen the polarization that is endemic in these times. I intentionally did my best to spend time with a broad range of people and groups by attending events such as: the Council for American Indian Ministries workshop, the Join the Movement for Racial Justice workshop, the UCC Historical Council lunch, the Open and Affirming LGBTQIA+ Gala, the Conservatives in the UCC lunch, and a visit to the Thah-Doh prairie where we were shown true UCC German heritage hospitality with homemade bratwurst, sauerkraut, pie, and ice cream followed by an evening hymn sing.    

What caught me off guard was the place I most felt that “God was still speaking in my life” was at the Conservatives in the UCC lunch. Ever since learning about the Faithful and Welcoming Churches in my UCC Polity course, I was curious to learn more about how they were trying to create a space in the denomination for people and congregations who identify as evangelical, conservative, orthodox, and traditional (ECOT). What resonated with my own life story is that they, too, did not want to feel invisible and expressed the desire to be seen, heard, and included in the denomination that is so often a refuge to people who do not fit elsewhere. During our table conversation, I experienced some of the best facilitation, active listening, honest sharing from one’s own experience, and kind clarifying questions across our group of eight’s multiple differences (age, race, gender, sexuality, region, theology, and political identity). 

In that space, I was able to share that I was raised politically conservative, traditionally Catholic, and culturally evangelical, but then, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I experienced harm in many of those same churches in Colorado Springs. Then, in my twenties, as I did a year of service with the UCC, I was formed in liberal and progressive religious and political spaces in Seattle. Now, in my next decade, I am curious how God may be calling me back to bridge-building spaces since I have experienced formation “on both sides.” After a positive experience at the lunch, I am curious how in our local churches we might intentionally create brave spaces to dialogue across our religious and political diversities in order to serve our community. I am intrigued by what God will reveal as we move beyond our comfort zones, with humility and curiosity, and learn to live together under this wildly big tent of the UCC.

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Bry Brannan is a DSF/Iliff student (M.Div.) and an ecumenical and interfaith community organizer. They believe that God works in mysterious ways and helps us bring to life what we once thought was impossible. Bry would like to invite the DSF community to virtually attend their internship site’s upcoming conference: “Prophetically Reimagining the Church” from September 19-20: https://reimaginethechurch.org/.