We meet at 10:45 a.m. in the winter (second Sunday in September through second Sunday in June)
for Sunday Worship Services and Sunday School.
We meet at 9:30 a.m. in the summer for the Summer Discussion Series.
These are more informal sessions than our winter services.

We are a community of people with different beliefs and diverse backgrounds who embrace basic principles which include the freedom to engage in our own personal search for truth and meaning. We come together in the spirit of mutual caring and respect to celebrate life, offer service, and work for a better world.

Church Activities

Summer Programs:

Summer Sunday programs offer casual consideration of various topics during July and August. We meet at the church at 9:30 a.m.

Women's Alliance:

The Unitarian Women's Alliance, a group of about twenty women, meets for luncheon once a month on Saturdays at 12:30. There is a program followed by discussion.

UU Film Series

Most months, we screen a couple of movies for our members and friends. Our Movie Nights are usually on the 2nd and the 4th Thursdays of each month. Following each screening, we share refreshments and discuss what we've seen.

Plant Sale

Our annual Plant, Book and Bake Sale has become a Quincy tradition. Usually held on the fourth Saturday in April, the Plant Sale has been our central fund-raising event since 1973.

Our Ministry

This church seeks to minister to the spiritual, intellectual, and social needs of its members and their families and friends. At the center of the church's program is the Sunday worship service, coordinated by a lay-led Worship Committee. Morning worship is followed by a period of coffee and conversation.

Classes for young people through high school age meet at the same time as worship services. Unitarians believe that religious education is one of the most important legacies we can offer our children. Classes focus on encouraging young people to be caring and questioning individuals. The weekly classes are led by volunteer teachers from the membership; care is provided for infants and toddlers. Irregularly, we make the OWL (Our Whole Lives) program available to our Junior High School aged children.

The Church is financed by pledges from its members and friends. It is governed by officers and a board of trustees elected by the membership. Committees administer many facets of church life. Special events are scheduled throughout the year. There are special festive services at Thanksgiving and Easter, and a candlelight Christmas Eve service is celebrated.

Adult classes and discussions, carry-in lunches, circle suppers, and fund-raising events, including a much-anticipated plant sale in the spring, are also scheduled. Our annual plant sale is both an expression of ecological concern and a service to the community. A monthly newsletter keeps members and friends informed of activities.

Dr. Robert J. S. Manning, Minister

Dr. Robert J. S. Manning is the 36th minister to serve this church. And he has served as our minister longer than any other in our long history. He was ordained and installed in November 1996. He is Professor of Philosophy and Theology and Chair of Humanities at Quincy University.

Dr. Manning graduated Summa cum laude from the College of Wooster in 1983 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He completed his master's and Ph.D from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Dr. Manning's two books and much of his other published academic work involve European philosophers of the contemporary period, especially Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. His other academic interests and areas of teaching experience are feminist theory and gender studies and Holocaust Studies. Dr. Manning has participated in several summer institutes sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and has participated in two seminars for professors at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 2006-07, Dr. Manning was a Fulbright Scholar in Romania. As a part-time minister, Dr. Manning represents the church in the Quincy community, participates in the administration of the congregation, and shares speaking responsibilities with laity and guest speakers. We present a small sample of his past sermons.

Dr. Carol Fisher Mathieson, Minister of Music

Soprano Carol Mathieson appears frequently in the region as a singer of opera and art song. She has sung with the Quincy Symphony Orchestra and in September of 2004, she sang the role of Mme. Heartmelt in the Muddy River Opera Company's production of Mozart's "The Impresario." She gives regular pre-performance insight lectures for Muddy River Opera Company productions, as well. She and pianist Leonora Suppan-Gehrich have performed Sunday Music Series concerts each winter for 30 years.

In 2003, Mathieson created an historical interpretation-performance of Victorian era diva Jenny Lind's legendary 1850's tour of America; and after its debut at Culver-Stockton College, "Jenny Lind Tours America" has appeared throughout the tri-state area as well as in the International Singing Symposium in St. John's, Newfoundland in 2005, a graduate seminar in American culture at the University of Kansas in 2006, and a Muddy River Opera Company benefit in 2007.

A graduate of Maryville College (TN) and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Mathieson received the doctorate from the University of Iowa. She is Professor of Music and Director of Opera Workshop at Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri where she has taught musicology and vocal pedagogy courses as well as applied voice lessons since 1975. She has received Abbott and Burlington awards for excellence in teaching. Dr. Mathieson serves on the boards of numerous arts organizations in the community including the Muddy River Opera Company and the Canton Area Arts Council. A certified church musician, she is Minister of Music and has been the organist at Quincy Unitarian Church since 1977. Under her direction, the Culver-Stockton College Opera Workshop performs chamber opera at the college and in local schools through opera outreach.

Rochell Jacobsen, Church Administrator

Our Administrator keeps office hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the mornings, from 9:00 a.m. until noon. At all other times, the answering machine will record your message.

Our Covenant

Love is the spirit of this church, and service is its law.
United in the free quest of high values in religion and life,
We covenant with one another:
To dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another.

---James Vila Blake (adapted)
our minister from 1877 to 1884.

Membership

The Quincy Unitarian Church is open to all who choose to walk with us in the spirit of love and in the search for truth. We have no creedal requirements for membership. Our principles are well expressed in the quotation from Earl Morse Wilber, a Unitarian historian, who said, "To the Unitarian of today the marks of true religion are spiritual freedom, enlightened reason, broad and tolerant sympathy, upright character and unselfish service." Openness to differing views is an essential part of our quest for truth. The church is a democratic institution; thus its value to individuals and to the community rests with its membership.

We invite you to join us!

If you would like to become a member, speak to one of our officers, who will witness your signing our membership book.