The First Universalist Church of Auburn and Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church of Portland will co-ordain Molly Brewer into Unitarian Universalist ministry on Sunday, Feb. 2, at 4 pm. This service, to be held at at 169 Pleasant Street in Auburn, will be open to the public. A reception will follow at 5:15 pm.
Brewer’s theological grounding is both deeply Pagan and uniquely Unitarian Universalist, and her ministerial foci have included neurodiversity and inclusive mental health ministry; embodiment practice and size justice; multisensory worship; and the connection between internal spiritual practice and acting for liberation.
Brewer served a part-time internship for two years under Rev. Dr. Jodi Cohen Hayashida at the First Universalist Church of Auburn. Prior to that, she was an active lay member at Allen Avenue UU, participating in multiple aspects of ministry including music, worship arts, small group ministry, social justice, and governance work. In 2016 she recognized her call to Unitarian Universalist ministry by beginning Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, a UU-identity seminary; she earned her Master of Divinity degree in May 2019. She was accepted into Preliminary Ministerial Fellowship by the Unitarian Universalist Association in September 2019, and the Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee described Brewer as “committed, articulate, grounded, and radically inclusive.”
Brewer previously trained as a chaplain visiting patients at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, and served as a volunteer intern at Portland-based Hope House, where she worked directly with new Mainers seeking political asylum and assisted them with accessing household necessities, legal services, and social support. Her justice ministry spurred her to participate in the activism of Moral Movement Maine and the Maine Poor People’s Campaign, which led to two civil disobedience arrests.
In addition to Brewer’s ministerial training, she holds a BFA in illustration from Lesley University, and she is a trained facilitator of Our Whole Lives sexuality education. She has also served as an online small group facilitator with the UU Church of the Larger Fellowship, a virtual ministry of the UUA designed to be accessible to geographically isolated UUs, incarcerated people, and other UU congregants for whom a brick-and-mortar church is not accessible or ideal.
Brewer will be splitting the offertory between the UUA’s Living Tradition Fund and EqUUal Access (disability ministry within the UUA).
FMI call 783-0461 or https://www.facebook.com/events/488835098435414/.