YES!!!

CUUB is proud to announce that Rev. Yvonne E. Schumacher Strejcek has enthusiastically accepted our congregation’s unanimous and heartfelt call to settled ministry.  After a candidating week filled with social events, committee meetings, house hunting and two wonderful sermons in the CUUB pulpit, our congregants were in 100% agreement with the Ministerial Search Committee who had wholeheartedly recommended her. Rev. Yvonne is CUUB’s first called minister and we are her first called church.

Rev. Yvonne Schumacher Strejcek was fellowshipped and ordained in 2009.  She served most recently as Acting Associate Minister at Arlington Street Church in Boston, and prior to that served as Intern Minister and then Acting Associate Minister at the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg, PA.  She is a lifelong UU who earned her MDiv from Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley in 2008.  Many years prior, she received her BA in Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  She grew up in suburban Detroit and attended the Unitarian Universalist church in downtown Detroit and was active in LRY as a teen in the ‘60’s.

Rev. Yvonne was a leader in our denomination for several decades prior to her decision to become a minister.  She served in leadership roles in several congregations in the Pacific Central District, earning numerous awards for outstanding service at both the congregation and district levels.  Notably, Rev. Yvonne was active in helping two churches similar in size to CUUB grow their membership exponentially and find permanent church homes, both of which are explicit goals of our congregation in the coming years. In addition to her work within the church, Yvonne has worked in audiobook publishing as well as federal civil rights enforcement for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the US Commission on Civil Rights.

Yvonne and her husband Barry recently celebrated their 30^th anniversary, and are eager to get settled in the Brighton area.  They have already purchased a house walking distance to downtown with a lovely yard that their pup Bounder will undoubtedly love as much as them. The CUUB community is anxiously awaiting their arrival from Boston later this summer.

During our search for a called minister for CUUB, the Ministerial Search Committee talked to many of Yvonne’s former congregants and colleagues.  It was not uncommon to hear quotes such as, “She is a gift to our denomination” and “Yvonne was the greatest spiritual mentor I ever had.” In a huge vote of confidence, one person said, “I’d have her back as my minister in a heartbeat.” Remarkably, literally several people said, “you would be lucky to have her.  If you get her, you’re the luckiest church in the world!”

We couldn’t agree more.