Our Story

Timeline of our Church

• 1883: The Reverend Thomas J. Van Ness delivered his first sermon to Boulder’s First Unitarian Society. Van Ness accepted a call to the Denver Unitarian church in 1884, and the Boulder group never again had a long-term minister. It had disbanded by 1890.
• 1946: A small group of interested Boulder residents (many with families) began meeting on the University of Colorado (CU) campus with an active student organization, the CU Religious Liberals. After about a year, the town group, wanting more religious education for their children, drifted apart from the CU group and started meeting separately in members’ homes.
• 1948: On July 30, the Unitarian Fellowship of Boulder received the first Fellowship Charter issued by the American Unitarian Association.
• 1957: The Reverend Thomas J. Maloney was hired as a part-time minister. He became full-time in 1959.
• 1958: The congregation elected to re-incorporate as the Unitarian Church of Boulder. Also in 1958, the church hired its first paid RE Director, Marianne Stilson.
• 1963: In June, ground was broken for the current church building on Pennsylvania Avenue. The architect was David Rowland, a member of the congregation and former student of Frank Lloyd Wright. The first service in the new building was held on Christmas Eve 1963.
• 1964-69: The Reverend Philip Pennington served as UUCB’s minister.
• 1971-93: The Reverend Forrest Whitman served the congregation.
• 1979: The congregation was officially renamed the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder.
• 1982-83: The Sky Room addition to the building was built.
• 1995-2000: The Reverend Kurt Kuhwald was the settled minister.
• 2000: The Reverend Jacqueline A. Ziegler was called as the first woman and fifth settled minister.
• 2008: as part of a Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) pilot program, a Developmental Minister, the Reverend Howell K. Lind, was contracted to work with the Board to reach a set of goals established by the congregation.
• 2014: The UUA named UUCB a Breakthrough Congregation
• 2015-2019: The congregation called its sixth settled lead Minister, the Reverend Kelly Dignan.
• 2021: The congregation called its seventh and current settled Lead Minister, the Reverend David Schwartz