Universalist Unitarian Church
Santa Paula, California
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Welcome

OUR CONGREGATION
We are individuals from all walks of life who share a quest to seek meaning and truth in our lives through our personal, spiritual and intellectual growth. We believe in integrating our spiritual journey with work for a world with peace and justice.

Our purpose is reaffirmed each Sunday morning when we repeat the words of our covenant:

Love is the spirit of this Church
And service is its prayer
To dwell together in peace,
To seek the truth in freedom,
To tell the truth with responsibility,
And to help one another,
This is our covenant.
We recognize the importance of sustaining a religious community of all ages, knowing that each of us needs support in our personal spiritual and religious journeys. We strive for an atmosphere of free and open inquiry, honoring our diversity. We affirm and promote our Unitarian Universalist Purposes and Principles.

OUR STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
In March 1999, our congregation gathered for breakfast and discussion as part of the Fulfilling the Promise process. Out of that morning came the words and ideas that describe who we are and why we exist as a congregation. Those thoughts were developed into the following statement of purpose:

We gather in love as a religious community
to support one another in our spiritual quests
and to share and explore our ideals and experiences.
We strive to be inclusive and accepting.
We challenge one another to create justice
for ourselves, our community, and the world,
both for present times and for future generations.

OUR SHARED VISIONS
At a morning gathering in 1998, our congregation looked at itself and our future. We envisioned what we wanted to be as a church. Our Vision Statement represents the collective goals of our congregation:

We, the members of the Universalist Unitarian
Church of Santa Paula, envision creating and
sustaining our religious community as a
congregation which welcomes, embraces and
delights in people of all ages, races and cultures.

We envision a comfortable, structurally and financially
sound church. We aim to live according to our religious
values and empower one another to do so.

We seek to better understand our Unitarian
Universalist Purposes and Principles, our own
belief systems and world religions through
exploring and experiencing spirituality, engaging
in social action and providing religious education
programs on art, music, creativity, and
spirituality for all ages.

We envision Sunday morning services with diverse music,
a choir and repaired organ with rituals which celebrate
the various rites of life passages.

We want to contribute and reach out to our local
community, offer forums and have discussion
groups.

We value our youth, and the natural world and seek to
preserve it.

We affirm our current strengths and look forward
to improving our future.

Our shared visions are expressions of what we
have in common and what we are commtted to. They
require the sharing of our skills, ideas, feelings, effort and
faith.

OUR COVENANT OF FRIENDSHIP
The Congregation developed the following statement at a workshop on March 14, 2004:

We the members of the Universalist Unitarian Church of Santa Paula extend hearts and minds to support the efforts of individual members to discover their spiritual destinies, to support our community, both locally and globally, with the goal of treating one another as cherished family members, and to remember to love and cherish ourselves.

OUR LIVING TRADITION
The Universalist Unitarian Church of Santa Paula is one of over 1000 churches, fellowships and societies that make up the Unitarian Universalist Association.

We trace our roots to the progressive wing of the Protestant Reformation. We have no creed or dogma to which our members must subscribe; nor do we find authority in a book or person. Rather, we look to our Jewish-Christian heritage and recognize the richness of world traditions. We believe in the exploration of religious truths on personal and collective levels.

Our Living Tradition has been greatly influenced by Unitarians and Universalists of the likes of William Ellery Channing, Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, Abolitionist Theodore Parker, and feminists Clara Barton and Susan B. Anthony. The Universalist church was the first to bring women into its ministry and the first religious group to go on record as opposed to human slavery of any form. In 1961 the two religions merged to become the Unitarian Universalist Association.

OUR HISTORY
The founders of our church, originally from New England, included many names which figure prominently in the history of Santa Paula and Ventura County. They first met as the First Universalist Parish in 1889 and incorporated two years later on November 17, 1891. The church was declared an Historical Monument by the Ventura County Cultural Board in 1977. The church's name was changed to reflect the merging of the Unitarian and Universalist denominations which occurred in 1961.


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