Updated February 2005

On March 28, 1999, North Raleigh United Church met for its first service of worship at Durant Road Middle School in Raleigh, NC. Funded by the United Church of Christ, 'invitations' to a new, progressive community of faith had been sent to almost 20,000 area households. 120 people attended this first gathering. The sermon from that first Sunday (“In the Beginning of the Gospel”) can be found on the sermon page of this web site.

Because the community would be governed by the local congregation, over the course of the next several months the gathered worshippers began to write a covenant which could serve as a central document for the church. On October 3, 1999, we invited each other, and all others who could own this covenant as their own, to sign it and thus become covenant partners. Over 70 persons signed that day. Covenant partners continue to be welcomed into the fellowship on a regular basis.

Leaders were soon elected from the membership and eight task forces chosen to carry out necessary duties. In January an extended congregational meeting was held during which decisions were made concerning priorities, chief among them to continue our practice of designating 51% of our general offerings to ministries beyond us, begin supplementing the part-time salary of Doug Long, pastor, to allow him to work full-time toward the development of NRUC, and seek to underwrite a budget that would allow us to continue building upon our current programming.

Though the practice of contributing 51% of offerings to ministries beyond us has discontinued (the congregation reluctantly voted to relax that high ideal as we build our own infrastructure), the NRUC community has since designated over $100,000 to ministries beyond us. In addition, we continually seek projects of hands on involvement.

Happily, as we have grown, so have our ministries to children and youth. In the Fall of 2004 we hired the Rev. Karla Jean Miller as part time Minister with Children and Youth.

As we continue living into this new congregationally-based community of faith, there is obviously much yet to be done. We are convinced that the God of love, justice, peace, and hope is very much at the center of what we do. We warmly invite all like-minded persons of faith to join us.