Kirkwood United Church of Christ

Website: www.kirkwooducc.com

Services:  5 p.m. Sundays

Average attendance: 70-80

Minister: Rev. Susannah Davis

Denomination affiliation: United Church of Christ (www.ucc.org)

Mission statement: "Worship, love, serve."

History: Kirkwood UCC began in 2007, when Rev. Susannah Davis and Susan Anderson purchased a local coffee shop in Kirkwood and held a monthly worship service, with about 25 community members attending. As worshippers accumulated, they gathered in different locations until landing their own storefront on Hosea Williams Drive. Now the church hosts 70-80 people each Sunday and has space for the congregation to pray, sing, worship, play, eat and serve together.

Pastor's Path: Davis received a Bachelor of Arts, in religion, from Emory and Henry College in Emory, Va., in 1992, and graduated with a Master of Divinity from Emory University's Candler School of Theology in1995. She has been ordained as a deacon and as an elder in the United Methodist Church in the 1990s, and was granted Privilege of Call in the United Church of Christ's Southeast Conference in 2007. She has served five United Methodist churches before founding Kirkwood United Church of Christ.

Ministries: Members participate in Bible studies and small groups that meet throughout the week. On Sundays, an active children's ministry provides a safe environment for the younger members while middle and high schoolers stay busy with monthly meetings, activities and outings such as movie nights, ice skating and the annual youth-adults kickball game.

Kirkwood UCC actively serves its community and the Atlanta area with a Soup Saturday Ministry. During the last two Saturdays of each month, members of the congregation prepare a lunch of soup, casseroles or barbecue for the homeless, hungry and working poor of Kirkwood. The ministry is meaningful to both the servers and the served, who sometimes end up joining the church. According to Davis, it is a ministry "with the community rather than to the community."

Another food-based ministry is Community Table, which falls on monthly Communion Sunday; everyone is invited to bring nonperishable food items for the church food pantry, and pantry bags are given out as needed throughout the week and to several guests of the last Soup Saturday of each month. KUCC participates with Neighbors in Need to help longtime community members with yard work and home repairs. They collect warm clothing, diapers, pantry items and Christmas gifts for needy community members and help with annual city clean-up events, such as Decatur’s MLK Work Day.

KUCC also hosts weekly meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, 8-9 p.m. on Fridays; neither dues nor church affiliation is required.

Thoughts from the pastor: "God is love, and at Kirkwood UCC we believe God's love belongs to all of us. As a congregation, we strive to open our hearts without fear of seeming different and to open our doors to share God's love with the entire community. We not only worship together, but we serve together, too. We believe in reaching out to those in need, just as we reach out to hold each other up. Above all, we believe in the transformative power of God's love in human hearts."