As the group prepared to worship outdoors, one member found two broken boards and nailed them together to form a makeshift cross that was leaned against the brick wall of the unfinished building. This cross continued to serve the congregation, and later when the UPC sanctuary was completed, the cross was carried, in prosession, from the campus up Bushnell to the new building and installed here in the chancel, where it has remained ever since.

 
This battered cross has been a meaningful symbol to UPC members, who see in its jagged ends and plain wood a broken world in need of healing. No proposal for a new and more beautiful cross for UPC has ever gained much support.

 
Over ten years ago, UPC began the custom of giving a replica of this broken cross to departing members. The cross represents the ties that bind us to one another and the love we share as we part.