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The new church met in a park shelter at Lake Edge Park that summer and (from September) in the Tenney Nursery & Parent Center through 1993-94. Charter Sunday was December 5, 1993, the first of four Sundays during which more than 70 people signed the membership book as charter members. The UUA welcomed the new congregation as a formal member. After considerable debate, JRUUC bought its own building in the summer of 1994: a former T-shirt screen printing structure at East Johnson and Fourth Street, behind East High School. Extensive volunteer activity got the building ready for services by autumn. Construction continued, new members joined, and in 1994-95 the church began offering a second Sunday service to accommodate the growing numbers. After an emotional debate, JRUUC changed the "C" in its name from "Church" to "Congregation." Johnstone's five-year subsidized extension ministry ended in 1998. The congregation voted enthusiastically to call her as JRUUC's settled minister, and formalized her acceptance with an installation service on April 26, 1998. Most members were surprised or shocked when, a little over a year later, Johnstone announced that she would resign at the end of December 1999 for personal reasons. Unusually high turnover in lay leadership compounded the challenges of 1999-2000. Lay ministers took responsibility for worship and pastoral care from the beginning of 2000 until August, when the Rev. Paul Daniel began a one-year term as interim minister. After a year of hard work, a search committee presented the congregation with its candidate for settled minister: the Rev. Shana Goodwin. Goodwin served the congregation for the next two years, showing a special affinity for children, youth, and young adults. Her resignation for personal reasons, like Johnstone's before her, took many people by surprise. It seemed too soon to be starting another search process and another interim ministry. Members reminded each other that the congregation is its members and spirit and mission, not its professional ministers, important though they are. By August 2003, when the Rev. Roberta Haskin arrived as interim minister (half-time because of financial constraints), JRUUC was looking forward with energy and optimism to the next chapter in its story. In September of 2004, the Rev. Darrel Richey was heartily welcomed by the members of the congregation. Rev. Darrel was installed several years ago as the congregation's settled full-time minister. In 2008, the congregation voted to begin a capital campaign to raise funds to re-model the JRUUC building and in January 2009, voted to go ahead with the construction. The First Ten Years The slender isthmus between two lakes divides Madison, Wisconsin, into distinct East and West sides. A landmark on the near West Side is the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building of First Unitarian Society, whose sanctuary window rises from the grass like the prow of a ship. By the early 1990s it had more members than it could easily hold. The lay-led Prairie Unitarian Universalist (UU) Society to the south was thriving too. A few Madison UUs began to dream of a third place to worship and grow. At First Unitarian Society's parish meeting in November 1991, the congregation appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on a Third Society to research the potential for a new church and report back in a year. The committee chair was Art Hackett. He and his wife, Sharon Bogert, had been tempted by the idea of a new church since the 1980s, partly because they had once been among the few couples at First Unitarian with small children. The committee also included Arthur Thexton, three other members of First, and a representative from Prairie. Thus began what some called "the Art and Arthur show." Committee members mapped the current church membership, queried other UU churches that had sponsored new congregations, analyzed data from the Dane County Regional Planning Commission, and surveyed church members to see if any wanted to start a third church. Responses showed equal interest in East Side and far West Side locations. Facing East Should UUs expand eastward or westward? The committee examined two hypothetical locations: the corner of Century Drive and the Beltline in Middleton to the west, and the corner of Cottage Grove and Stoughton Road to the east. The West Side offered a fast-growing, high-income population that matched traditional UU demographics. The East Side offered greater economic and ethnic diversity, an advantage in the eyes of Hackett and Thexton (who both lived on the East Side). By the time the two returned from a UUA training weekend in Boston in May 1992, they were ready to recommend an East Side focus. Thexton reported to First Unitarian Society leaders as soon as he got home. As he and Hackett wryly told the committee, "He gave them both barrels, and as a result of his enthusiasm and his lack of time to prepare a more thoughtful and tactfully worded report, gave the mistaken impression that we are already on the road to starting the new church." Feathers unruffled over the summer as the committee met with separate focus groups of West and East siders. Carol Ferguson, Margaret Iles, and four others attended the East Side focus group. That East Side group expressed hope for a religious alternative closer to their homes, with more economic diversity and more spirituality in its services. "God is hardly mentioned [at First]," one said. That fall First Unitarian and Prairie approved the creation of a New Congregation Planning Committee to establish an extension congregation on Madison's East Side. The new committee was a step toward independence. Unlike the previous year's committee, the group met on the East Side and was open to participants who had no connection to First. A well-publicized organizational meeting packed the conference room of Jim Jaeger's law office on Atwood Avenue. Through the winter of 1992-93 interested participants met several times a month at the Atwood Community Center, with Thexton as interim leader. Little Amelia Lardy came with her parents, Jeff Lardy and Penny Andrews, as a visible testimony that children were welcome. The group established clear priorities: spirituality, social action, and the inclusion of children. They created a mailing list, started a newsletter, and adopted a mission statement. In addition, they agreed to ask the UUA and First Unitarian Society for a subsidy, phased out over five years, to help pay the salary of an extension minister to be appointed by the UUA. Choosing a name was harder. Suggestions included Eastside, Eastview, Third Society, Aldo Leopold, and Yahara Community Church. The suggestion that finally won the day came from Thexton: to name the church for James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister killed in the civil rights ferment of the 1960s. First Minister, First Service Jonalu Johnstone liked beginnings. As a student at Harvard Divinity School she was attracted to extension ministry, helping a brand new congregation create its traditions and grow strong enough to stand on its own. Johnstone had grown up a Southern Baptist in Virginia, graduated in Special Education in 1977, and taught in Virginia schools until 1982, when she returned to graduate school. She later worked for several agencies in Virginia and West Virginia. Then, during her experience as an active lay leader in the UU Fellowship of Greater Cumberland, Maryland, she recognized her call to ministry. She entered divinity school in 1990 and was in her last semester when the new Madison congregation applied for an extension minister. UUA officials showed her packets from three prospective churches. One had sent a notebook bursting with pictures and descriptions of what they wanted in an extension minister. An even slicker group sent a videotape and a four-year budget projection. The packet from James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Church, by contrast, was laughably concise: a slim folder containing just four sheets of paper. But what came across from those scant sheets was enough for Johnstone: a strong commitment to spirituality, social action, children, and diversity. "This is the place for me," she thought. The church was informed of Johnstone's appointment the week before its grand opening service, set for June 6, 1993. That was the bright spot in a week of frustration. The Moravian pastor who had volunteered use of his church was overruled by his board at the last minute. Volunteers stood outside the Moravian church to re-direct traffic to the Schenk Middle School gym. The service, however, offered inspiration and hope. The morning dawned clear and sunny. Seventy to 100 people attended, including some new and unfamiliar faces. The guest minister was David McPherson of Brookfield, a friend of the late James Reeb. The district president, who had forgotten to pack her shoes, conveyed denominational greetings in an elegant white suit and Reeboks. "Sometimes you have to make do," she said. At the end of the service the children presented a flaming chalice banner they had just made in Sunday school. Later the banner would hang in the James Reeb sanctuary. By afternoon the founders were in high spirits. They unwound at a committee member's apartment while they took turns looking through Jonalu Johnstone's ministerial packet. "It was one of the best days," Thexton recalls. That summer the church met in a park shelter at Lake Edge Park near Cottage Grove Road. Over the weekend of July 9-11 the Reverend Johnstone and her partner, Jane Powell, came for a formal interview with the congregation. Johnstone laughs as she recalls exchanges from that first meeting. "What kind of music are you envisioning?" she asked the group. After a long silence, someone finally spoke up: "Nothing in German." After a culminating service in the Andrews-Lardy barn, Johnstone and Powell withdrew to the farmhouse while the worshipers voted to commit themselves to five years with Johnstone as extension minister. Johnstone moved to Madison in August and led services in the park. Those were challenging, nomadic times. There was no meeting space, no office. A rumored briefcase of office supplies had been assembled and misplaced, not to resurface until four years later. After two or three days of near-panic she relaxed: "We're just going to make this happen." By fall the church had a minister's office at the Atwood Community Center and an indoor Sunday meeting place. Tenney Nursery & Parent Center In September 1993 the Tenney Nursery & Parent Center was renovating an old cab company building on Mifflin Street to convert it into a daycare center. Tenney needed rental income; the church needed space for Sunday worship and religious education. It was not a perfect match. The day before the first service, a thick layer of construction dust covered every surface. The meeting room was not yet wired for electricity. Johnstone and volunteers swept, scrubbed, and hung construction lights to make the room habitable for the Sunday 11:00 a.m. service. Fresh construction dust greeted worshipers each week until the daycare renovation was done. Some problems proved intractable. The meeting room was too small, seating only 40 people comfortably. Sunday services opened with about 50 adults and sometimes approached 80, with an average of 63 over the year. And since the Tenney Nursery & Parent Center was not designed for worship services, each service began and closed with a workout-hauling the folding chairs up and down two flights of stairs between the meeting room and a storage pallet in the basement. Religious education classes met in classrooms full of daycare toys the church children were not allowed to touch. Middle school, grade school, and preschool classes met with founding teachers Becky Burns, Nancie Cotter, Ann Fleming, Larry Iles, Joanne Riese, and Mary Wagner. When the preschool curriculum called for a tour of the church building, Cotter took the children to the only spot the church could call its own: the basement pallet loaded with chairs. It may have been the briefest church tour in history. Many things went right, however. Music took hold with adult and children's choirs, a recorder consort, and 50 new hymnals donated by First Unitarian Society. A social action committee was formed with a focus on the welfare of local children. Johnstone taught adult religious education classes. A women's group built a communal chalice and celebrated the Pagan holiday Imbolc with home-baked bread in the shape of a Venus of Willendorf. Spring saw the emergence of a lay ministry group. The highlight of the year was Charter Sunday on December 5, 1993. UUA district administrator Helen Bishop visited from Illinois. Adults lined up during the service to sign the membership book. One former Catholic was reminded of lining up for communion. Arthur Thexton and Art Hackett signed first in recognition of their founding role. More than 70 people signed over four Sundays as charter members. (The children signed a book of their own.) The UUA welcomed the new congregation into the denomination. James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Church was finally official.  A Home of Their Own One spring day in 1994 Art Hackett and Sharon Bogert were enjoying a walk when they noticed a "for sale or rent" sign on the Johnson Street building behind East High School. The former T-shirt screen printing Madison Top Company edifice was a mess. Inside it was a dark, depressing maze. Beside it the end of Fourth Street, which served as a parking lot, was strewn with condoms and broken glass. The smaller lot in back had only six parking spaces. For all its flaws, the place might meet a need. The church had outgrown its space at Tenney and its patience for toting chairs or trying to keep the children's hands off the toys. The minister needed an office nearer to services than Atwood Community Center or her more recent office beside a podiatrist at the corner of Washington and First Street. What should the congregation do? Should it try to make its home in the Johnson Street building, and if so should it buy or rent? The UUA strongly discouraged purchasing the building. The congregation was too new, too financially marginal for such a commitment; it could not even afford a down payment. Yet financial projections convinced the facilities committee that buying was cheaper than rent. The conflict was resolved in an impassioned congregational meeting in May 1994. Johnstone paced the back of the room unsure whether to hope practicality or idealism would win the day. Then Ingrid Stark stood up. "What are we about?" she asked rhetorically. "This is a church. This is about faith!" The vote to buy was unanimous. And so another year started in the midst of construction dust. Volunteers demolished walls and built new ones, ripped up carpet, and renovated the bathrooms. Nothing that August was more important than getting the building in shape for services-or so it seemed until charter member Howard Jilbert died unexpectedly. Work shut down, and church members traveled to Janesville to be with the Jilberts at the memorial service. The event marked a profound passage, Johnstone recalls. "A community existed that hadn't been there before," she says. "It was very poignant to me to see that support rally around the Jilbert family." The first service at the new building was held in the small back parking lot, since the church did not yet have an occupancy permit. Refreshment tables were set up outside. Between worship and refreshments everyone went indoors to the sanctuary, where Johnstone led a brief ritual to dedicate the space. Mary Wagner, who had hated the building at first sight, says it felt like home. Religious Community The church welcomed 35 new members during 1994-95. Johnstone wrote, "We became recognized in the community as an affirming church for people who have not found easy acceptance in other places: especially for lesbians, lesbian families, people with mental illness, and biracial families." By May adult membership topped 100 and again pushed the limits of the worship space. In the fall of 1995, the third year of services and the first year to open relatively free of construction dust, the church began offering two different Sunday services to make enough room for everyone. Construction never stopped. Nail by nail, door hinge by door hinge, volunteers turned the industrial structure into a church house for children and adults. They attacked the interior with drywall and paintbrushes on Saturday mornings week after week. The many construction heroes of 1993-94 included Ed Kuharski, Ed Jilbert, Jeff Lardy, Randy Coloni, Randy Hill, and Elsbeth Knott, "the Queen of Grout." With more than 40 children registered for religious education in 1993-94, the Sunday school split into preschool, kindergarten-through-2nd, and 3rd-through-5th grade classes. Construction went on to give the children walls, doors, and light switches for their classrooms. By 1997-98 Dan Richardson was the new construction hero and there was no sign the building would ever be done. Yet more important than walls or numbers was the continuing growth of religious community. Sunday services drew people together, especially the sharing of joys and concerns. Music expanded with unconventional performers like Roy Kornburger on the accordion and Janelle Prine on the saw. Various musicians played their own instruments or the borrowed piano, and a trio sang a cappella under the name Senseless Acts of Harmony. Particular services became annual traditions: an All Souls' Day service to mourn the dead, and Martin Luther King and James Reeb commemoration services to reaffirm social values. The religious character of the church was complex. "I heard that James Reeb is the most Christian of the three Madison UU congregations," one person said in an adult religious education class. "That's funny, I heard that it was the most Pagan of the three," another responded. Not all members shared the same spiritual path, but services made frequent reference to God, Goddess, and spirit. Community grew through common endeavors like involvement in the Emerson School program for homeless children and the racial justice group's sponsorship of the film The Color of Fear. It grew through fun times like potlucks, folk dances, and the annual "Reeb Rave" auction. It grew through hard times as well. Soon after moving into the Johnson Street building the church held its first memorial service there, for charter member Glenn Iles. The resignation of board president Margaret Iles in 1996 challenged the church to examine the ways it offered its leaders personal support. An emotional debate about changing the organization's name from "church" to "congregation" challenged members to listen to one another with patience and love. But there was one question that aroused no controversy whatever: should the congregation ask Jonalu Johnstone to stay as its regular settled minister when the five-year extension ministry ended in 1998? The answer was a resounding "Yes!" With Johnstone's installation as the ongoing minister on April 26, 1998, she and the James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Congregation started a new phase of their life together. Ministerial Transition Only a little over a year later, Johnstone announced that she would resign at the end of December 1999. She had accepted another position better suited to her personal needs. Responses varied: shock, sadness, anger, excitement, acceptance. The prospect of losing the only settled minister the congregation had ever known was a reminder that the spirit of the congregation did not reside in any one individual. As the date approached, the board struggled with the search for an interim minister willing to begin in January. Higher-than-usual turnover in board membership and leadership added to the stress. By the end of December it was clear no interim minister would be in place until August. The seven months from January through July were difficult and enriching. The board stabilized and led the congregation to discover its own strengths. Some long-term members left; new members joined. Lay ministers arranged or conducted worship services, with some continuity provided by a student minister and a campus minister who each preached about once a month. A ministerial search committee was appointed and began the long, demanding process of finding the right person to call as settled minister in 2001. When interim minister Paul Daniel arrived in August 2000, many members breathed a collective sigh of relief, even as they knew the work of transition was not over. Ahead lay new challenges, new causes for celebration, and new opportunities for spiritual and congregational growth. When the search committee presented its candidate for settled minister the next spring, the congregation concurred unanimously and with great rejoicing. The Rev. Shana Goodwin began to minister to JRUUC in August 2001. Members hoped she would stay a long time. The Goodwin Era On September 11, 2001, airplanes piloted by terrorists flew into New York City's World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon and crashed in Pennsylvania. Thousands died. Like other Americans everywhere, JRUUC members were shocked and stunned. Like religious communities all over the United States, they came together in a midweek impromptu worship service. Many found comfort in the midst of people who spoke of peace and human understanding, while most of the country seemed to be clamoring for a war of revenge. Providing religious leadership through the crisis, a challenge for most clergy, was all the more challenging for one just beginning her first settled ministry. A recent graduate of the Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California, Goodwin was already living in Madison when she met with the search committee. She was 28 years old, of mixed ancestry (African American, Native American, and European American), with a love of art, music, and children. Her homilies spoke to the heart, drawing on personal experience and a sense of the divine. She was well up to the challenge of emotional leadership in the wake of September 11. Her experiences working in a kindergarten were prominent among the memories she shared with the congregation. At JRUUC she built especially warm relationships with children, youth, and young adults. Instead of reading the children a story during each Sunday service, she conversed with them about the day's topic, calling each child by name and closing by joining hands for prayer. She initiated social activities among the young adults. New young families joined the congregation. In December 2002 half a dozen young mothers formed "Moms for Social Action"; within a few months they collected two boxes of children's clothes and diapers for a local respite center and assembled 14 health kits for Iraqi civilian families. Soon after her arrival, Goodwin offered an adult "Evensong" class, in which participants shared very personal stories and came to know each other more deeply. She led groups to a museum and Olbrich Gardens to explore the visual dimension of spirituality. She set the groundwork for the autumn 2002 start-up of four ministry circles: intimate small groups that met regularly, developed a covenant, and conducted occasional service projects. Regular between-service ("BS") discussions began in January 2003, loosely facilitated by lay ministers or other participants. Jazz, spirituals, feminist folk and other music became a part of congregational life in new ways. Goodwin started each Sunday service with gathering music, a favorite CD introduced with a comment about why she especially liked this singer or song. She followed worshippers' sharing of joys and sorrows with spoken and silent prayer, ending the silence by singing a few lines from a spiritual or other hymn such as "Spirit of Life." In her first year, the brothers Aaron and Steve Pavao conducted adult and children's choirs respectively, and Susan Cook advised the minister on hymn selections as well as accompanying hymns on the piano (as did several others). In 2002-03 new member Ian Riddell brought continuity by directing both the adult and children's choirs and, when Susan Cook left for a sabbatical in the Netherlands, assumed responsibility for other aspects of the music program. The board formally appointed Riddell music director, a new unpaid staff position, effective September 2003. Deep Purple By the beginning of 2003, JRUUC was bursting with activity. New members were signing the book and the minister had a devoted following. Representatives from JRUUC and other area congregations met to plan for growing Unitarian Universalism in the Madison area. A Broad-Based Organizing group conducted a series of conversations with members of the congregation, hoping to build relationships and discern values that could become the basis for participation in broader community action. A long-range planning committee consulted JRUUC members about renovating the present space and/or moving to a larger facility in two to five years. Meanwhile energetic volunteers remodeled the nursery and, under the guidance of a Feng Shui consultant, repainted the lobby and sanctuary walls and hung Christmas tree lights on the wall behind the pulpit. With no discretionary JRUUC budget, individuals bought paints with names like Purple Dahlia, Wax Begonia, Columbine, and Daylily to make the space warm and inviting. Asked to recall highlights of that period, member after member responds, "That was when the sanctuary walls turned purple." Amid a sense of momentum, Goodwin's resignation for personal reasons in the spring of 2003 took many people by surprise. Long-range planning was derailed. It felt too soon to be starting another search process and another interim ministry. As President Peggy Haack wrote in the 2002-03 annual report, "This is a story of tears . . . It is a story of pride . . . It is a story of hopefulness, too." Members reminded each other that the congregation is its members, spirit, and mission, not its professional ministers. The Rev. Roberta Haskin arrived as interim minister in August 2003. Half time because of limited JRUUC finances, she commuted from her home in Minneapolis. She brought a flair for humor and drama, telling Ole and Lena jokes or illustrating a sermon point with a skit. She moved and personalized the minister’s office, “Roberta’s Nest.” She had members weave a ribbon tapestry and donated perennials for the strip of earth alongside the building. As interim minister, she did not mince words in pointing out what she saw wrong. Systems were in disarray. The congregation claimed to be welcoming but did not schedule anyone to greet or make coffee. JRUUC had more activities than members organized to conduct them. The board had agreed to search for a full-time minister but could hardly hope to attract one, Haskin said, until it set its house in order. Rebuilding Shattered glass greeted worshipers arriving for Sunday service on Oct. 19, 2003. Vandals had hurled cement blocks through the glass door and window. Glass fragments stuck in the carpet and sofa. Volunteers wielded brooms in the lobby while others led new arrivals to a side door to avoid the broken glass. Some members wept; their family had been attacked, their home violated. Some who had once disliked the building were surprised to find they cherished it. Along with the tears came determination. Mary Kateada gathered the cement blocks into a pile by the altar. Rev. Haskin preached about the need to come together in the face of a broken world. Building Chair Darrell Pope began coordinating repair efforts. Reeb youth put a sign in the window, facing the street: “Better things to smash: War, Poverty, Racism, Injustice...” The vandalism energized the congregation. Having felt shattered by the loss of their latest minister, members experienced the power of community to overcome adversity. Welcoming a replacement sofa and a check toward the insurance deductible from First Unitarian Society, they acknowledged their kinship with the wider UU family. Building community was one of the three priorities the board selected for the year, urged by Rev. Haskin to focus on a few essentials. The other two were membership and canvass. Half the board constituted itself the membership committee; the other half, the canvass committee. Efforts toward rebuilding membership began with cleaning the rolls. Instead of 150 members, JRUUC turned out to have fewer than a hundred. Next came rebuilding systems for greeting, using visitor information cards, and follow-up. An intensive face-to-face canvass squarely faced the need for funds. The minister spoke about money from the pulpit. Members welcomed canvassers into their homes. They stretched and dug deep, increasing total pledges to $80,000 from just $56,000 the year before. The dream of a full-time minister was at stake. Fabulous! Meanwhile a search committee was hard at work to find the right minister. Suspense was high as the group stood before the congregation in April to make its announcement. Search committee chair Mary Kateada reported how the committee had narrowed the field to two potential candidates, lost one to another offer, and concluded the other finalist was not a good enough fit. It was a “failed search.” Martha Crawford leapt up from her chair. “Thank you! Thank you!” she cried. With heartwarming applause, the congregation thanked the committee for the courage to come back empty-handed rather than bring a lukewarm recommendation. A reconstituted committee did a new search over the summer, this time seeking a minister on a part-time contract with hopes of growing to fulltime settled ministry in a year or two. Budgeted stipends for the religious education and music directors represented an investment in programs as a key to the needed growth. Seminary student Darrel Richey had been watching JRUUC as he approached graduation. JRUUC’s commitment to diversity and a rich, dynamic community attracted him. His first view of Madison from the airplane window in July was a scene of intense green—unlike Texas, where he had been a successful interior decorator, or California, where he studied for the ministry. That view set the tone for the whole visit, he said. It looked too green to be true but was vibrant and real—like JRUUC, alive with color. This time the fit was right. Richey captivated children, youth, and adults with the enthusiasm embodied in his characteristic “Fabulous!” He laughed and listened and asked the hard questions. By a joyful vote of 60-to-zero, members asked the 6’4” Texan to be their minister. He and his partner, Randy Schoesler, bought a house six blocks from JRUUC. They moved to Madison in September. Like Goodwin, Rev. Richey soon found himself pastor to congregants mourning larger world events. The nation was at war in Iraq. While the JRUUC Moms for Social Action registered voters for the presidential election, individual members threw their energy into campaigns. For many, profound sadness and a sense of failure followed the November 2004 election results. With their new minister’s guidance, they worked through the sadness and got to the other side. On the other side was new work to be done. Fresh energy coalesced around state and local issues. Members organized to combat a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in Wisconsin. When homophobic crusaders protested a high school production of The Laramie Project across the street, JRUUC opened its doors to counter-protesters to warm up with hot cocoa or cider, use the facilities, and gather for discussion afterwards. Within JRUUC, Sunday attendance was bursting at the seams. Religious education was booming, with more than sixty active children and youth by mid-year. The choir accompanied the director of music ministry on the road, presenting a guest service for the UU church in Wausau. Interest groups, chalice groups, a revitalized JRUUC library, social activities—community-building was blossoming out all over. A crowd jammed the minister’s home for a holiday open house in December, a vibrant celebration of community. To the hosts the event was a house blessing. Richey said, “We wanted our home charged with all that love and the energy that attracted us in the first place.” |
Creation of a Unitarian Universalist congregation on Madison's east side began as an extension effort by First Unitarian Society (FUS) in Madison. Art Hackett, Arthur Thexton, and other FUS members formed the core of a planning committee, which met through the winter of 1992-93. The James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Church (JRUUC), named for a UU minister murdered during civil rights activity at Selma in 1965, held its first service in June 1993. FUS and the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) provided a subsidy, phased out over five years, to help pay a full-time extension minister, the Rev. Jonalu Johnstone.
