Scrapbooks

The three major pieces of CUCC history are

• The United Church of Raleigh Scrapbook that was assembled around 1959. The United Church of Raleigh was the old "downtown" church which moved to the present location in 1969.
• A collection of Remembrances assembled in 1981 as part of the 100th Anniversary celebration. Church Historian Ann Elleman conducted tape recorded interviews with a large number of church members. Susie Sapp then transcribed the recorded interviews into printed format. (The location of the original cassette recordings is unknown.) 
• The 100th Anniversary Scrapbook (1981) which was made available in spring 2015 for the first time.

A Narrative of the Church

This is a film narrative about Community UCC and the various ancestral branches that have led to the present day church. It is not a history, in that it doesn't seek to explain or interpret nor is it anywhere close to being the full story of the church. It's a narrative based on church artifacts and recollections that have been collected and preserved over the years. Many of the anecdotes in the film are taken from the Remembrances available elsewhere in this archive.

A brief printed narrative of the history of the physical facilities used by this congregation was prepared by Merrilee Jacobson in October 2019.

Let me emphatically say that this is not an "official" church production. The choice of subject matter is almost entirely mine. Unquestionably, there are folks who would have selected other content. I will avoid the usual disclaimer "all the opinions expressed herein are my own", because in fact none of the opinions expressed in the film are my own. The characters selected are speaking for themselves in their own words. So the personal touch that I have provided is only in the selection of material, not in the interpretation of it.

This is not a promotional video for the church. It shows the bumps in the road along with the things we like to brag about.

You will find the newspaper clippings to be more readable if you watch the video fullscreen and at the highest resolution your Internet connection will support. Presently Vimeo sets the initial resolution automatically based on assessment of your bandwidth. But there is a manual override. And Vimeo supports fullscreen viewing. The picture to the right shows how to access the resolution settings and how to activate fullscreen viewing.

The entire film is 67 minutes long. It's broken up into four parts of varying length. All four parts are available below.

-- Lavon Page

-- January 2016

Part 1 (Length: 12 min.)



Part 2 (Length: 16 min.)



Part 3 (Length: 19 min.)



Part 4 (Length: 20 min.)

Paul Klemmer Memorial Service

A memorial service for Paul Klemmer, son of Ed and Ruth Klemmer, was held at the church on January 9, 2016. The video below shows the entire service (46 min.). This video may also be viewed at YouTube.

A brief history of the merger of United Church and First E and R congregation

On January 19, 1994, CUCC's pastor, Rev. Cally Rogers-Witte, contacted the denomination to correct an error in the UCC yearbook.  For several years, the founding year had been recorded incorrectly in the yearbook.  This one page letter gives a summary of the merger of the United Church and First Evangelical and Reformed Church, henceforward to be located at the new building of the latter congregation.

Letter regarding history of merger of United Church and First Evangelical and Reformed Church

A brief history of the relationship between CUCC and UUFR

On January 3, 1993, CUCC's pastor, Cally Rogers-Witte, spoke at the dedication of the new sanctuary of our Wade Avenue neighbor congregation, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh.  Her address gives a history of the family relationship between our predecessor congregation - United Church - and what are now the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh and the Friends Meeting of Raleigh.  She traces some of our inheritance from the values of those heritages.

Greetings at Unitarian-Universalist Dedication of New Sanctuary

A CUCC vision statement from the 1970s

In 1989 CUCC was engaging in long-range planning.  They uncovered a vision statement which had been written in the 1970s, but had no information about what had led to the statement or if it was adopted.

1970s Vision Statement for CUCC