Rev. John Cullinan departs Unitarian Church of Los Alamos after 17 years. Photograph by Thomas Graves
UNITARIAN CHURCH OF LOS ALAMOS NEWS RELEASE
Within the spring of 2007, the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos invited a minister contemporary out of seminary to take its pulpit. This summer season, 17 years later, a bittersweet parting is at hand, as Rev. John Cullinan departs for Studying, Penn., to grow to be the minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County. His final day within the Los Alamos pulpit can be June 16; Rev. Tina DeYoe, the church’s present Director of Lifespan Spiritual Training, will assume the pulpit in August for at the very least two years as minister professional tem.
The intervening years have seen the Los Alamos congregation by means of marriages and memorials, winter holidays and autumn in-gatherings. Their new constructing, devoted in 2016, is a middle not just for the Unitarian Church however the Los Alamos neighborhood as an entire. Like many church buildings, the COVID pandemic impacted attendance and participation, even many months after the doorways re-opened. However COVID days are within the rear view mirror, leaving Rev. John assured that he leaves behind a congregation that’s sturdy and rising, serving each younger and previous.
Rev. John is a graduate of Meadville Lombard Theological Faculty in Chicago, the place he earned a Grasp of Divinity diploma. He holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts with a minor in Theology from Marquette College in Milwaukee, WI. He at the moment serves the Unitarian Universalist denomination as a Good Officer for his or her Ministers’ Affiliation. Outdoors of church, he’s a performer and school member at Santa Fe Improv.
He turned as Unitarian Universalist (UU) due to a deep want for church neighborhood. Rising up in a denomination that didn’t match him as an grownup, he discovered a brand new church residence within the First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee. Sept. 11, 2001, impressed him to do one thing significant in a hurting nation, so simply 4 years after strolling by means of the doorways of the Unitarian Society, he was a seminary pupil on the trail to ministry.
Being a minister has formed his life, bringing him to embrace an ever-deepening path of religious development. His capacity to know his viewers and get his message throughout has grown with time. Rev. John says that his “relationship to the divine is always in flux,” and that his job as a minister is to “live his spiritual human life and report back on his progress,” placing his humanity into his ministry, and conserving on the core of that ministry the everlasting, beloved, gracious supply of all life and all love.
When requested why members of our neighborhood ought to be part of the UU church, Rev. John said merely, “because Unitarian Universalism puts love at the center for what is stands for. This church is a laboratory for how we build a community, putting ‘e pluribus unum’ into living practice.”
His first decade in Los Alamos was spent shepherding a constructing venture, involving a profitable $4 million capital marketing campaign, and a “year in the desert” in a rental facility. As difficult because the venture was, its completion left the congregation with out the glue that certain it for a number of years. It took a while to pivot to the subsequent steps, re-focusing from elevating a constructing to serving to the congregation take its subsequent steps ahead.
Rev. John mentioned he’ll miss everybody dearly: the congregation, his circle of buddies, and his improv workforce. He may also miss the enjoyment of residing within the mountains, and an awe of residing within the Los Alamos panorama that has not dwindled in 17 years. And to not be forgotten, inexperienced chili bagels at Ruby Ok’s.
His recommendation and blessing to these he leaves behind is “believe in the mission – else nothing matters.” Take some intentional time to refine that mission, and let the brand new minister, an imperfect human being like all ministers, be the minister, a religious chief of a congregation and a companion of a powerful lay management. Give attention to what’s of worth contained in the congregation and the bigger neighborhood, and don’t concern of challenges, just like the inevitable variations of opinion and strategy inside the congregation, and the monetary challenges of working a church.
The challenges for his subsequent ministry will not be dissimilar for these confronted by Los Alamos congregation that he leaves behind – seeing what one can create collectively, discovering inspiration, and drawing on the religious depth of people. The Los Alamos congregation will miss Rev. John, however has full religion for its shiny if separate futures. All are invited to hitch the Los Alamos Unitarians of their neighborhood of compassion and inquiry.
Associated
“Well bless their hearts.”
