Sacred Place United Church
Who We Are
A church that looks a little different.
Sacred Place is a small, progressive church plant in Rancho Cucamonga, California. We first gathered in June 2019 and have been showing up for each other—and our community—ever since. We are part of the United Church of Christ, a denomination rooted in the conviction that God is still speaking.
JUSTICE. INCLUSION. FAMILY.
We are Open and Affirming. We are non-creedal. We take justice seriously, not as a slogan but as a practice. And we believe the church is at its best when it looks like the whole family of God.
What’s in our DNA?
Justice
Justice-making is how we show up in the world. We don’t just talk about a more just world—we try to build one, one week at a time.
Inclusion
Everyone means everyone. We are Open and Affirming—an official UCC designation—and we mean it. No one gets told they don’t belong here.
Family
We are building something together—a community that sustains, supports, and shows up. The family of God is bigger than any one of us.
What do we actually believe?
Yes, explicitly. We’re an Open and Affirming church—that’s an official UCC designation, not a catchphrase. It means we’ve made a formal commitment to the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. It’s not a footnote; it’s foundational.
We’re non-creedal—we don’t require you to recite a statement of faith or hold any particular theology. We believe God is still speaking, that love is the center of every meaningful belief, and that the church is at its best when it looks like the whole family of God. Bring your questions, your doubts, and your whole complicated relationship with faith.
Seriously, but not without error or context. We read Scripture as literature—poetry, history, letters, apocalyptic writing—written by people with stories to tell from their own context. We take the Bible as literary, not literal, which means we engage it deeply without flattening it.
We don’t endorse parties or candidates, and we don’t pretend that the things Jesus actually talked about—poverty, justice, welcoming the stranger, loving the people the world casts aside—are politically neutral. We try to follow Jesus honestly. Sometimes that puts us at odds with the politics of the moment. That’s fine with us.
The UCC is a mainline Protestant denomination with roots in the Congregational, Christian, Evangelical, and Reformed traditions. It’s a denomination where each local congregation makes its own choices about belief, worship, and welcome. We are explicitly progressive: marriage equality, full LGBTQ+ inclusion, and racial and economic justice have been part of who we are for decades.
Our Story
Sacred Place was born from a conviction that the Inland Empire needed a church where justice, inclusion, and family weren’t just slogans on a website—they were the reason we exist. Our mission is to create a just world where ALL are included in the family of God, one Sacred Place at a time. That’s not a tagline. It’s the thing we measure ourselves against every single week.
The launch team spent more than two years casting this vision before we ever held a single gathering. The first half of 2019 was spent listening—praying, discerning, and asking where this particular kind of church was most needed. The answer was Rancho Cucamonga. In June 2019, we gathered for the first time at Jasper Elementary in Alta Loma, and we’ve been showing up ever since.
We are a theologically progressive church, and we’re specific about what that means. We use gender-inclusive language for God—our God has both motherly and fatherly characteristics. Pastor Matthew applies more feminine language especially when talking about the Holy Spirit, because God does not have a gender, even if the English language doesn’t deal well with that reality. We read Scripture seriously and contextually, as literature written by people with stories to tell from their own time and place, not as a rulebook to be applied without thought.
We don’t discriminate based on gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or any other thing that might be used to call someone “other.” In fact, we work hard to break down those barriers. As an Open and Affirming church, we’ve made a formal, public commitment to the full inclusion and affirmation of LGBTQ+ people—not as an afterthought, but as a core part of who we are.
We are a small church. We have never pretended otherwise. We believe small churches can do real things—and that showing up consistently, faithfully, and honestly matters more than production value or attendance numbers. We gather every Sunday at 11 am at our Mission Center in Rancho Cucamonga, and online at yoursacredplace.org/live.
10289 25th Street
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730
Sunday Gathering at 11 am
All are welcome—come as you are.