It all began with a phone call between two young Kent County mothers in December 1991; the fruit of that conversation today, twenty years later, is a thriving congregation of over seventy members, with its own place of worship and its own minister.
In their talk the women asked each other: should we / can we start a Unitarian Universalist congregation in the Kent and Queen Anne’s area? When they found others interested in the denomination, they moved ahead. By September 1992, after lengthy meetings and calls, the Unitarian Universalists of the Chester River (UUCR) held their first church service.
A special 20th Anniversary Service will be held on Sunday, September 23 at UUCR with featured speaker Rev. Dr. Richard Speck, Executive Director of the Joseph Priestly District of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). The public is warmly invited to join the celebration of two decades of spiritual growth and development at the fellowship’s home at 914 Gateway Drive. For more information visit www.uuchesterriver.org or call 410-778-3440.
In the early days UUCR meetings were held in the Chester River Friends Meeting House on Philosopher’s Terrace. From there the growing congregation moved to the Casey Academic Center at Washington College for the next six years. As their need for space grew, the Fellowship moved back to the Friends Meeting House.
A generous bequest from the late Peter F. Tapke, a retired professor at Washington College, a founding organizer of the Chester River Fellowship, and longtime Unitarian, made it possible for the congregation to build a permanent home. In late 2005 they broke ground on a new building at 914 Gateway Drive in Chestertown. They moved into their new church home in late 2006, holding weekly 10:00 AM services, religious education programs for adults and children, social events, and outreach activities to benefit the surrounding community.
Chestertown’s UUCR is a member of the national Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and is committed to the promotion of human dignity, democracy, social justice, the quest for meaning and truth, and a sustainable environment.
It is the mission of the UUCR to foster liberal religious ideals through public worship, study, service, and fellowship; to provide a public forum to address religious, ethical, and moral issues; to support individual freedom of belief and caring human relationships; to become an intentionally diverse community; and to engage in promoting a just and humane social order.
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