Seeing Unity Temple Again...

For 13 years I was a Parish MInister as I completed the training for my Board Certification as a Chaplain and Certification as a Consulting Hypnotist. I served a small congregation in Southold, Long Island for three years, and a larger congregation in Oak Park, Illinois for a decade.

     

The building owned by the Oak Park congregation is a national landmark, Unity Temple, by Frank Lloyd Wright. 

     

This year Unity Temple is having its Centennial Celebration. As part of this festival, the current Parish Minister, the Rev. Alan Taylor, invited back his two living predecessors, the Rev. Jay Deacon and myself. The three of us shared a pulpit together in October and this month, Rev. Deacon and I were each asked to do a full service for our former congregation.

     

It was a lot of fun. It was great to see the Temple again and to see the people in the Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation. In my denomination former ministers are not allowed to have contact with congregations they have served in the past except in unusual situations like this. So this was a rare treat.

     

A photo arrived today from a member of the church. It is of me, just outside Unity Temple with the people who were on the Search Committee that selected me to come as Parish Minister twenty years ago. I don't have their permission to share the photo on the web, but I've tucked it into my personal photo album where I'll be able to enjoy it and the memories that go along.

     

If you want to see what the congregation is up to, check out their web site at http://unitytemple.org/

     

To my former congregation....God bless you and good speed.