The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock welcomes The Rev. Jennifer M. Slade as the interim minister for current church year. She will lead the congregation as it continues the search for a new settled minister.
The Rev. Slade comes to the congregation from Durham, North Carolina, where she did work for the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and where she served a historic Universalist Church in Sampson County. Previously she served 10 years, as senior minister at the Greenville Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Greenville, South Carolina. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School and spent 2 years of clinical training in a hospital setting in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
While she came to love the South, where she was been told that her children, by fortunate accident of birth, are Southerners, Rev. Slade is pleased to return to her Midwestern roots. She looks forward to sharing ministry with the Woodstock Congregation as they seek new and innovative ways to live out their mission to journey as a community towards spiritual growth; freedom in faith; celebration of diversity; commitment to action; devotion to each other, the community and the Earth.
Rev. Slade observed “Historically, Unitarian Universalism is a religion of deeds not creeds, a faith committed to giving people ‘not hell but hope and courage’. The UU congregation in Woodstock understands that in these times the world sorely needs actions that are supported, not by fear, but by hope and courage.”
On Sunday, September 11 Rev. Slade will kick off her tenure in the pulpit and the new church year with The Challenge to Grow-up in Spirit in which she will discuss “a day fraught with significance for almost every American…I would like to speak to how we becomes responsive spiritually adults in the face of strong, even overwhelming emotions.”
The following Sunday, September 18 her sermon The Sheltering of Each Other will be based on a book by psychologist Mary Pipher, a Nebraska U.U. It will be “an exploration of our demanding times and the way the stories we tell about ourselves impact the lives we lives. How can we use these stories to envision and create a community which both shelters and challenges?”
Rev. Slade will lead worship services at the church, 221 Dean Street in Woodstock at 10:45 most Sunday mornings. For more information on upcoming services and activities call the church at 815 338-0731 or visit http://www.cucw.org/.
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