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How I became a Born Again Unitarian
by Peg Herbert

When I was in high school I had a teacher who warned me against going to the University of Minnesota because he said I would lose my faith.  I didn’t pay him much heed, went anyway and sure enough, did stop believing in all the Catholic dogma that had been part of my life for the first 18 years.  But how I got from there to thinking of myself as a UU is less clear. When Tom and I were going to get married, we needed someone to marry us and Tom’s older brother introduced us to the UU church that they were attending. I guess I liked what they had to say because it was that UU minister that married us in my parent’s back yard back in 1967.

From that point on we considered ourselves Unitarian Universalists and we started coming to this church when our 2 daughters were young.  Dot Soule and I led a number of sessions of the “new U” course and LeRoy Anderson and I facilitated the Haunting Church curriculum.  Then, for various reasons, we just stopped coming.  We continued to make a pledge; we called ourselves UU’s but neither of us felt drawn to attend on any regular basis.

So how did I become “Born again?”   It was really a combination of things.  One was the hearing about the “covenant groups” that LeRoy was often talking about.  Then Diana Anderson died.  Not only did I see how the church community rallied around her and LeRoy, her death also blew on the embers of questions that I had smoldering and I felt like I wanted to be part of something that could help me explore them. So Tom and I came to a Covenant group breakfast, and decided to put together our own covenant group with others that were there and looking to join one.   And I would be the facilitator.  

So now I had a monthly commitment.  And then it was twice a month as I found out the facilitators had their own monthly meeting.  I would occasionally stick my toe into a church service to find that not only were there still wonderful friends here from earlier years but also a whole community of new and interesting people to get to know. I started coming more regularly. Before I knew it, I found myself as a committee chair of the facilitators, which led to going to workshops to learn more about how small groups were revolutionizing many UU churches.  One Sunday this fall, I heard Brittany Casey wishing for new members for membership.  By this time I was beginning to feel rather passionate about our faith and decided I could either go door to door with pamphlets or join membership.  I opted for the latter.  And the former teacher in me couldn’t help but volunteer to help restructure the children’s program for Family Ministry and the Friday night covenant group.  And in amongst all this busyness, I am also finding some answers to a few questions like how do I feel about “sin” and what do I feel “being saved” really means.

I like my church involvement; it has given me a way to go outward towards community as well as inward toward my own spirituality.  Thank you to all of your for helping to make that happen.