First Unitarian Stewardship

We are loved and accepted for who we are. Our struggles and our passions are recognized and shared.    We do good things together.   We are drawn together by love and hope.  Scott Hayman Long before I attended a First Unitarian Church service, or even set foot in the church, I was drawn, without knowing, to its community and its tradition, its people and its abundance.   This was around 1990.   I was working in the trenches running a program called the Donations Clearinghouse, a program created by the Worcester Committee on Homelessness and Housing, which is now known as the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance. The Donations Clearinghouse still operates with the simple mission of collecting donations of furniture and household goods and redistributing them to homeless families making a fresh start in their own apartment.   So around 1990, Will Sherwood, our Music Director, whose day job was at Digital Equipment Corporation, called me up and said, “We’d like to raise funds for

First U has given me a place to nurture a commitment to helping others.  Liz Gustavson When my husband and I were “church-shopping” early in our relationship, we came to First U, the church of his youth, and I realized I could have a home here as well.   Barbara Merritt was the minister, who performed our wedding ceremony nearly 30 years ago.   I loved Barbara's ability to gather words of wisdom from diverse sources and make them come alive.   Soon after we started attending regularly, I also met Mary Melville, the moderator, an incredibly bright and clear-thinking woman.   My reaction was that I wanted to be like her when I grew up!    And that has been my reaction to many people in our community: that this is a church that attracts talented, smart, committed folks who have been a pleasure to get to know. First U provides me with a place for continuing the search for truth.   Leaders in the pulpit during the year, and at the podium during the summer services have helped br

No one source will be seen as superior by any one group of people. We will finally see the light in each other’s eyes as equal to that in the mirror: all powered by the same source. Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa Awash on a sea of spiritual confusion, I stumbled into a UU church while expecting Zak, now 26 years old.   A devout Catholic child, I was unable to reconcile being a fierce feminist with my faith of origin.   I had been church shopping.   My search ended as our young family found a home in the little UU church in Haverhill where we were living at the time. It was powerful to have a female minister!     I had believed my whole life that all paths were worthy and beautiful.   I had never known that an organized religion believed the same.   What joy to meet my tribe! One year later we moved back to hometown Worcester for the start of medical school.   Barbara Merritt, also a young working mother, commanded the pulpit.   Sermons were no longer a slather of dogma from an out of