Building Community in Conferences & Publishing
Ministers at all stages of their careers benefit from continuing education. One way I continue my learning is through historical research and writing. Engaging in UU history and heritage is an important way I grow as a minister and a Unitarian Universalist. Historical research informs my preaching and my teaching. A regular routine of reading and writing is spiritual practice for me. Additionally, through engagement in UU History, I contribute to our larger UUA movement. I hope that my publications and volunteering in UU History organizations also help others expand their identity as people of liberal faith. Indeed, engaging in UU History and Heritage is one important means of building community for me.
My involvement in UU history supports what I offer congregations during transitioning ministry, as for example in leading work on one of the five focus points which encourages interim congregations to review its own history as it moves forward toward new ministry. I try to include some fact or example from UU history in each sermon I preach, as appropriate to the theme of the service, and I regularly offer adult faith development classes in UU History and Heritage. Better knowledge of their history strengthens congregants’ commitment to Unitarian Universalism.
In 2015 and 2018 I taught UU History at Wesley Seminary in Washington DC. Connecting with our UU ministers-in-formation in this academic context added to my own learning, while also providing important connections and support for emerging ministers. As I re-locate to another geographic area for transitioning ministry, I am available to teach courses and advise UU seminarians at other theological schools.
My connections with other scholars and writers also build community for me. I have made many acquaintances and friendships with other UUs. I hope that my volunteering to our various scholarly organizations strengthens these groups and the wider community of UU scholarship. I served on the board of the UU History and Heritage Society for nearly a decade. For the website of that society, I created a project on Congregational History and I chaired the steering committee which organized the first national UU History and Heritage Convocation in 2010. I continue now to serve a new organization created by the consolidation of UUHHS with UU Collegium. This new group, the UU Studies Network, is grounded on the principles of Anti-Racism, Anti-Oppression, and Multi-Culturalism advanced by the UUA Commission on Institutional Change. I hope my conversations and presentations at conferences and convocations have expanded participants' awareness of Universalist heritage, particularly of women's ministry. Community is not only about the present: we also build community by engaging with our past.
My current research focus is UU women’s history. For the past decade, as time in ministry allows, I have been researching and writing a biography of Lydia Ann Jenkins, a Universalist minister ordained three years before Olympia Brown, the minister we generally acknowledge as first ordained American woman. Lydia Jenkins was also a leader in the first phase of the American Woman's Rights movement, with Anthony, Stanton, Stone, and others, and she also became a doctor of the alternative medical practice of watercure. My forthcoming book on Lydia Jenkins, currently under contract with an academic publisher, will offer a revised view of the story we tell of Universalists contributions to American religious history.
My current research focus is UU women’s history. For the past decade, as time in ministry allows, I have been researching and writing a biography of Lydia Ann Jenkins, a Universalist minister ordained three years before Olympia Brown, the minister we generally acknowledge as first ordained American woman. Lydia Jenkins was also a leader in the first phase of the American Woman's Rights movement, with Anthony, Stanton, Stone, and others, and she also became a doctor of the alternative medical practice of watercure. My forthcoming book on Lydia Jenkins, currently under contract with an academic publisher, will offer a revised view of the story we tell of Universalists contributions to American religious history.
Views from UU HIstory Convocations: 2010, 2013, 2019
Samples of Publications, Conference Papers, and Conference Leadership
Publications:
“1860-1869: Call for Unity and Continuity,” The Through Line: 200 Years of the Berry Street Essay, ed. Kate Walker (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2021), 21-30.
Review, "Cindy Cumfer," Toward the Beloved Community: The First Unitarian Church of Portland, Oregon, 1865-2015." JUUH (2016).
"Celebrating the Ordination of Olympia Brown: Context and Implications," JUUH (vol. 37: 2013-2014) (text available on request)
Conference Papers:
"Re-Assessing the Origins of Women in Liberal Ministry: from Woman's Rights to Separate Spheres," UU History and Heritage Convocation, Baltimore, 2019.
"Olympia Brown: Religious Innovator or Feminist Reformer: Which Came First?" UU History Convo, 2010.
Conference Organization:
UU History and Heritage Society, and UU Collegium: UU History Convocations: Planning Committee, 2010, 2013, 2016
UU Collegium: Program Committee Chair, 2009, 2014
UU History and Heritage Society, Congregational History Project
History, a mental construct which extends human life beyond its span,
can give meaning to each life and serve as a necessary anchor for us.
It gives us a sense of perspective about our own lives
and encourages us to transcend the infinite span of our life-time
by identifying with the generations that came before us
and measuring our own actions against the generations that will follow....
Gerda Lerner. Why History Matters