First Unitarian Stewardship

We’ve endured one of the most dramatic and difficult organizational changes when we lost our beloved Ministers – so significant was that loss that I decided that no matter what, I wanted to remain here … [and] we’ve flourished … we have held together by holding one another together.  Jane Beckwith More than ten years ago, like so many others, we were “church–shopping” and came upon this church as one in a series of visits.  When we arrived and saw the sanctuary, witnessed everyone enjoying one another before the service started, watched as the service evolved, then heard the Choir sing, and then heard Reverend Merritt’s sermon, we knew this was to be our church.  As many have also said before me, I never knew there was a place like this, nor did I know that I was in search of such a place.  We joined the church two weeks later – that’s how sure we were, in our hearts if not yet in our heads. In the past few years, I’ve understood better what’s so very special about our chu

Religion is far more than what happens on Sunday morning.  What’s most important is how what happens on Sunday morning shapes and influences our actions all week long.   I’ve long seen religion as a matter of behavior.  Life-Span Faith Development implies to me that we never stop trying to apply our faith in our everyday interactions with others.  Paul Ropp I first came to First Unitarian to sing in the choir, and for two years, I saw that as my only responsibility (even though we loved the Sunday services and were impressed with the choir community).  One day Barbara Merritt mentioned that on average people attend the church for two years before joining.  Marj and I both had the same thought at the same time:  “We come every Sunday and appreciate the experience, we might as well sign up as members.”  After that, we began to stay for coffee hour and we quickly got to know people beyond our friends in the choir. Among those people was Bill Densmore, a deceptively quiet and so

“I believed that my day job as an RN in the Pediatric ICU at UMass would make it easy for me to handle a bunch of teenagers.  However, I was surprised to encounter teens willing to gain more knowledge in their spiritual quest and to learn how to use this in their everyday lives.”   Rudy Cepko   For many years I had not stepped into a church except for weddings and funerals.  In the mid-1990s, my wife, Alesia, started attending church to sing with UU choir.  She was impressed by the message that she heard from Barbara Merritt and suggested that I try the church.  I felt I was in a place that spoke to me, and our son Stefan was enrolled in the Sunday school programs. I had some involvement with church stewardship as a volunteer in the Garden committee.  Mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, planting and laying yards of mulch were part of my contribution to the church. Then when my son, Stefan, was in YRU2, he asked if I would be interested in becoming an assistant during the Sunday m