Billings Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

 
In 2008, the Billings Unitarian Universalist Fellowship celebrated its fifty-year anniversary with a dinner at the Yellowstone Art Museum and a joyful Sunday service presented by Montana musician and UU favorite, Judy Fjell. In those fifty years, our friends, members, ministers, visiting speakers, and musicians have made our lives much richer by sharing their time, talents, and ideas with us.
 
Small Beginnings
 
The fellowship movement began in 1948, and many fellowships started with small ads in newspapers such as “Are You a Unitarian, But Don’t Know It?” In Billings, however, the founders did their search for a liberal religious association on their own. Two women, one a Unitarian, decided they needed a liberal religious education for their children in this traditional, conservative community. With individuals referred to them by the Universalist Church of America, the American Humanist Association, and the Unitarian Layman’s League, the group was formed. At a congregational meeting January 19, 1958, officers were elected, bylaws and a budget of $383 were adopted, and an application was made for membership in the American Unitarian Association (AUA). The AUA Fellowship Director responded, “The first thing I did upon receipt of the application was to put a star on our large map. At last there exists a Unitarian Society in every state of the Union…We welcome you as the 237th Fellowship currently affiliated with AUA.”
 
In 1961, the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America joined to become the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). The UUA was comprised of about one-third Unitarians, one-third Universalists, and one-third fellowships of both denominations, which added a creative and independent force to the movement.
 
Growing Stronger
 
Programs at the early Fellowship covered a variety of subjects, from contemporary social and environmental concerns to religious and humanist topics. Memorable moments included a visit in the 1980s by Reverend Robert L. Fulghum, then the Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest District and minister of the Unitarian Church of Edmonds, WA, and now famous for his bestseller, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, who led the workshop “A Religious Education Encounter” at the Fellowship. UUA President (and later, Amnesty International Executive Director) William F. Schulz spoke at the Fellowship in 1986 when it co-sponsored the centennial celebration of Bond’s Mission, a Unitarian industrial school built for Crow children in 1886 near the Bighorn River.
 
In 2007, the Billings Fellowship, with the assistance of the UU Fellowship of Bozeman, hosted the Mountain Desert District’s Annual Meeting at the Billings Holiday Convention Center—a huge task for two small congregations. Because of the hard work of volunteers, over 200 UUs attended the conference from throughout the Rocky Mountain region.
 
Putting Down Roots
 
During its first 25 years, the Fellowship fluctuated in size and moved locations many times. Russell Lockwood, the Mountain Desert District Executive, made two suggestions to help the Fellowship grow: “Get a minister,” and “Quit moving the place of your services around like a floating crap game.” Because the Fellowship couldn’t afford both, the congregation voted to obtain a building. In 1982, they purchased the property at 2032 Central Avenue for $110,000, though it didn’t have a room big enough to hold all the members. Soon afterwards, volunteers designed and built a sanctuary addition designed to seat one hundred people.
 
Ministers
 
For forty years, the Fellowship had invited Unitarian ministers to Billings to perform memorials, weddings, and child dedications, but most often, the members performed the ceremonies themselves. In 1998, when the building loans were paid in full, the congregations held a mortgage-burning ceremony and started the ministerial search process. The Fellowship received its first part-time minister, Rev. Phlox Launcher, in 1999. Two years later, Rev. Don Vaughn-Foerster was hired as a full-time interim minister, followed by Rev. Zakir Henson as quarter-time consulting minister from 2004 to 2005, and Rev. Wanda Daniels as part-time consulting minister from 2005 to 2008.
 
The Fellowship is currently between ministers, but in 2008 it hired a Director of Children’s Religious Exploration to better serve the Fellowship’s families, and it continues to employ its administrator, whose position was started in 2004 to assist the Fellowship with communication, development, bookkeeping, and outreach.
 
Reaching Outside Ourselves
 
Throughout its fifty years, the Fellowship has worked on social justice and environmental issues. In 1997, it was certified as a Welcoming Congregation after a two-year process designed to help the congregation become more welcoming to gays and lesbians. Soon afterwards, Montana was noted for being the first state in the UUA in which all UU congregations were certified as Welcoming Congregations.
 
The Fellowship is currently working with the organization Not In Our Town on issues of cultural and racial diversity, is a community partner in the Audubon Conservation Education Center, and donates to a variety of nonprofits including the Billings Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.
 
Recently, the Fellowship began the Green Sanctuary certification process, which is a UU program to assist churches and fellowships in institutionalizing sustainable environmental behaviors. With planning, education, and changing current practices, the Fellowship is on target to become certified in 2010.
 
As it begins its second fifty years, the Fellowship continues to welcome those who are in accord with the Seven Principles and trusts that those who follow us will also find the acceptance, enlightenment, and friendship that keep us calling the Fellowship our spiritual and intellectual home.