“Never place a period where God has placed a comma” — Gracie Allen

Pilgrimage Supports UCC’s
‘God Is Still Speaking’ Campaign

For years, Pilgrimage United Church of Christ has been a welcoming congregation. That's among the reasons why members voted to become Open and Affirming.

	UPDATE: APRIL 25, 2006 ‘Ejector’ Ad Ends Run April 30 From a UCC News Release: “The new ejector-seat ad will appear through April 30, but not until Mother's Day as had been hoped. About $250,000 was raised, well short of the $1 million needed to extend an ad buy with sufficient saturation to make the buy effective.” That said, the UCC decided to extend the Still Speaking initiative until 2007. The UCC has also launched i.ucc.org. The press release can be found here: http://news.ucc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=543&Itemid=1

	UPDATE: APRIL 12, 2006 Q Television Will Also Air UCC’s ‘Ejector’ Commercial for Free Yet another cable network has decided that the UCC’s advertisement of abundant welcome is worthy of being aired for free. Q Television will air the commercial as a public service announcement. Read more about Q Television’s free offer Q Television’s website

	UPDATE: APRIL 11, 2006 ‘Here!’ Network Offers to Air New ‘Ejector’ Ad for Free While the Logo network refused to air the UCC’s new television advertisement, Here!, another cable channel focused on gays and lesbians, has offered to run the commercial for free. Read more about Here! and the free offer The website of Here!

	UPDATE: APRIL 7, 2006 Pilgrimage Pastor and Member Respond to Opinion Piece Pilgrimage United Church of Christ’s pastor and a member responded to an opinion column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the new “ejector” ad that began appearing on dozens of cable networks. Read the original column that appeared April 1 in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer here. The AJC ran the column on April 5. Read Rev. Kimberleigh Buchanan’s response in the AJC’s Letters to the Editor from April 6. Read Pilgrimage member Emily Adam’s response in the AJC’s Letters to the Editor from April 7.

	UPDATE: APRIL 7, 2006 New ‘Ejector’ Ad Starts; Even a Gay Network Refuses to Air Ad Logo — a cable channel focused on the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community — ejected the United Church of Christ’s pro-gay ad. Logo is among the Viacom-owned networks that includes MTV. A Viacom sales representative said it could not accept the UCC’s 30-second commercial “because of the political nature of its content.” Read more about the rejection here. Logo’s website

	UPDATE: June 23, 2005 Welcome UCC General Synod 25 Representatives to Atlanta Pilgrimage United Church of Christ welcomes you to our “backyard” for General Synod 25. Learn more about the UCC's meeting at the denominational website, www.ucc.org/synod.

	UPDATE: June 15, 2005 Controversial UCC Television Commercial Wins Two Awards The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLADD) awarded the United Church of Christ’s “bouncer” ad as 2004’s most outstanding electronic advertisement. Additionally, the controversial commercial was awarded Outstanding 2004 Commercial its positive portrayal of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people at the first-ever Commercial Closet Images in Advertising Award. Read more about the awards at UCC.org, GLAAD.org and GayLinkNews.com.

Pilgrimage UCC supports the United Church of Christ’s “God is still speaking,” campaign, launched on Dec. 1, 2004 and continuing in April 2006.

Pilgrimage members have attended training sessions on the campaign and fully supported the denominational message that God loves everyone, no matter who.

See the newest advertisement that was launched on April 3 by visiting www.stillspeaking.com or www.ucc.org.

You can see the ad on several networks, including the following ABC Family, A&E, AMC, BET, CNN, CNN Headline, Hallmark, History, TBS, TNT, E!, Lifetime, Si-TV, and Azteca America. (Looking for the ad? Here's a schedule when and where you could see it.) A print advertisement also appeared in an issue of People magazine.

You can also see the commercial on Here! and Q Television cable networks, which are channels dedicated to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender communities. Logo, another GLBT network, is refusing to air the advertisement, even though the United Church of Christ attempted to purchase commercial time (see the articles to the right for details).

History of God Is Still Speaking

The United Church of Christ — with support of many UCC congregations nationwide including Pilgrimage — began running television advertisements in 2004 as part of the “God is still speaking,” campaign. Unfortunately, televisions networks CBS and NBC refused to air the UCC’s televisions ads.

This resource center was established so people might learn more about the news surrounding this growing controversy.