History of the Congregation
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Falmouth
We celebrated our fiftieth birthday on May 27, 2009. By a happy coincidence, the national Unitarian Universalist Association recognized us as a Green Sanctuary congregation on the same day. Green Sanctuary churches work for a just, peaceful, and sustainable environment.
In the 1950s, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was still controversial in American churches and traditional ideas about race and gender were defended by many of the priests and preachers in Massachusetts. Young adults in the Woods Hole area wanted to affirm a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. In the spring of 1959, sixteen people joined together to create a Unitarian organization in Falmouth. Most of these founders were parents of young children. Records say,” The major but not the exclusive interest was the establishment of a Sunday school.”
The American Unitarian Association formally recognized the Unitarian Fellowship of Falmouth on May 27, 1959. For two years, lay led adult religious services were held on Friday evenings in Falmouth’s community center and Sunday school classes were held in members’ homes. In 1961, when the national organizations of Unitarians and Universalists joined together, the congregation adopted its present name, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Falmouth.
In 1962, the Fellowship began to meet at the Quaker meetinghouse in West Falmouth. Many members and leaders during its early years were scientists and technicians, teachers and others, who were involved with the marine sciences. While Rev. Kenneth Warren, the pastor for the Unitarian Church of Barnstable, and Reverend William E. Gardner and others served as consulting ministers, lay led services continued as the norm.
During the 1980s, as the demographics of Falmouth and nearby towns of Bourne, Sandwich, and Mashpee changed, the fellowship entered a new chapter in its history with the coming of many retirees. Increasingly, services were led by visiting ministers and seminarians. With active support from the UUA, the congregation grew internally and in prominence in its communities. In 1988, members voted to seek a full-time minister and establish a meetinghouse of their own. On November 1, 1989, the Fellowship welcomed Rev. David Nash Williams as its first full-time spiritual leader.
In 1991, the Fellowship moved to New Alchemy, a unique center in East Falmouth that was known for pioneering environmental education and new technology for sustainable living. In 1992, the Falmouth Jewish Congregation sold the Fellowship 3.2 acres of land, the Fellowship formed committees to lead fundraising and construction, and, three years later in December 1995, the first service was held in the Fellowship’s new meetinghouse.
When in 1999 Rev. Williams was called to a new pulpit the Fellowship conducted a year-long search that culminated in calling Rev. Robert Murphy, a Harvard Divinity School graduate who had served Unitarian Universalist congregations in the American South. Bob Murphy and his wife Lyn Dalzell arrived on Cape Cod for Labor Day, 2000.
The decade since 2000 has seen strong growth in the congregation’s music and religious education programs for children, youths and adults and enthusiastic support for two of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s signature programs: Welcoming Congregation, adopted formally in June 2002; and Green Sanctuary, adopted in June 2007. In 2008, the UUA’s national General Assembly selected a topic proposed by the congregation, “Ethical Eating,” to be the 2008-2012 Congregational Study/Action Issue. As the Fellowship celebrates its 50th anniversary, it has 230 members and friends and is a respected voice in the communities it serves. The Fellowship is earning a national reputation within the Unitarian Universalist movement for its grassroots work in bringing human rights and environmental protection issues together. For five decades, the Fellowship has welcomed people of diverse beliefs who agree with Unitarian Universalist principles and wish to be together, in fellowship. Together, we try to help each other and change this world for the better.