If you are seeking a supportive and searching religious community for worship, discussion, and friendships with encouragement for personal spiritual growth, we of the Charlotte County Unitarian Universalist Fellowship welcome you.
We are a liberal congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Our congregation is composed of people who vary in their religious beliefs. We provide a place where individuals can meet accepting and understanding friends. We look to each other for spiritual nurture, intellectual stimulation and emotional support through all stages of life.
We wish to contribute to a better world, socially and ecologically. We believe all people on earth have equal claim to life, liberty and justice. We believe the responsibility for the kind of world in which we live rests with us. Our services celebrate the gift of life. We recognize the sacred in all aspects of religion, nature and relationships.
Since Unitarian Universalists are a diverse group of people, a good way to get acquainted with our religious orientation is to attend several of our Sunday Services. The coffee hour following the Service is an opportunity to meet us one-on-one.
The purpose of our religious education program is the ongoing discovery of personal meaning, value and belonging. We strive to help young and old develop a personal theology and move toward a positive, self- accepting understanding of life and death.The roots of the wisdom we seek to pass on come from all the world's religions including Jewish and Christian sources, indigenous peoples, our own U. U. history, principles and purposes, and stories, forms and metaphors of all art and culture. We seek to present diverse ideas from these sources in a free and open minded climate of respect where questioning prepares us for understanding. We place high value on human relationships and seek to cultivate a vital community in which to grow. We celebrate the importance of the heart, the mind, the intuition, the emotions and the senses. These are nourished by the wonder and inspiration experienced in communal worship, creative life affirming ritual, individual self development and spiritual practice.
Our U.U. Fellowship was organized in January 1969 under the guidance of our founding mother, Lucile Hait. During the first ten years we had a pleasant association with the Jewish center where we were allowed to hold our meetings. Slowly we grew in strength and numbers, and in 1984 we were able to dedicate our present Fellowship building. The construction of this facility was a formidable achievement by a still relatively small group, and it made many new activities possible and allowed many of our ambitious plans begin to become realities.
As early as 1978 we started to have part time professional leadership for our services. The Rev. Dr. Carl Westman began conducting them twice a month, and the Rev. Don Lawson joined Rev. Westman in 1985 helping lead services for several years. The goal of obtaining a full time minister began to mature beginning with the appointment of Rev. George G. Brooks to a part time post from January 1990 to May of 1992. During that time the congregation prepared itself for the undertaking of calling a full time minister.
With the assistance of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Rev. Sylvia Howe was installed in November of 1992 as our interim minister to facilitate the transition to having full-time professional leadership. The selection process was completed in the spring of 1993 with the calling of Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore.
Rev. Trumbore graduated from Starr King School for the Ministry, an affiliate of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He comes to us after serving as a part time minister for the U. U. church in Niagara Falls, New York. Before receiving his call to ministry, Rev. Trumbore was trained as an Electrical Engineer at U.C. Berkeley and worked in the computer field in California's Silicon Valley. Rev. Trumbore's wife Philomena is a social worker currently working part time for Charlotte County Mental Health as a therapist. They have a son, Andy, who was born in May 1992 and may be met after the Service on Sunday morning.