Re:Raised Catholic, looking at other churches, help us choose

I recently discovered the United Church of Christ, through our local congregation at the Orinda Community Church. I had never heard of this protestant group, but it has deep progressive roots.

This church is wonderful, providing warm and accepting community, and the kind of ''Berkeley'' values we wondered if we had left behind when we moved through the tunnel. In fact, our church right now is housing homeless families in a county-wide church run effort that was a response to Orinda's public refusal of a shelter last winter.

The UCC has been in the news lately, because they made a TV ad aimed at those who feel unwelcome in the religions they grew up in. Its message is ''whoever you are, wherever you are on your spiritual journey, you are welcome here.'' The reason this was in the news was that two networks -- CBS and NBC -- refused to air the ads because they include same sex couples in the people pictured! You can read all about the UCC, and see the ads, which are very moving, at http://www.ucc.org/

A last note; the church has a sense of humor. When I went to the site just now to get the address right, I saw this on the home page: ''SpongeBob recieves unequivocal welcomes from the UCC.'' anne