I was raised in NYC and rural NJ by nominally Lutheran parents and attended an American Baptist Church as a child. In college I found a more intellectual Christianity in the Unitarianism of Channing, Emerson and Parker but favored Religious Humanism.

         Living the transitory life of a military officer for my first career, I visited or was a member of many of our societies in different parts of the country. My family and I were members of UU Congregations in Plattsburgh, NY, in Las Vegas, Caribou, Maine, York and Carlisle, Pennsylvania. During my thirteen years in England I was associated with British Unitarian congregations and the European Unitarian Universalist movement.  After retiring from the Air Force I entered Seminary in Lancaster, PA. After 30 years of association with UU congregations, I chose to attend Christian seminaries to gain a better appreciation of the beliefs and worship practices of Christians and Jews. I then studied Pastoral Counseling at the University of Chicago Hospital and completed Doctoral work, studying the interim process with congregations involved in conflict.  

         For my study of conflict after Chicago I ministered to two pastoral-sized pilgrim churches: for two years in Kingston, Massachusetts, and followed another Pastoral-sized congregation in Charleston, WV. After Charleston I ministered as a settled minister for five years. This congregation wanted to develop from a pastoral-sized church into a program-sized organization.

         I feel we UU’s have more in common with other religious communities than we have issues that divide us. I would rather work with that commonality. Many of our UU Congregations are so geographically isolated that our colleagues cannot be Unitarian Universalists. In Charleston, WV. for example, I was the only full-time UU minister in the state; my closest UU colleague in regular ministry was located 90 miles away in Ohio. 

         I look forward to being your interim minister.

Yours in faith,

Len