UUCSW’s 300th Anniversary
300 years of Celebrating Love, Seeking Knowledge, and Advancing Justice
UUCSW is turning 300 in 2024, and we are ready to celebrate! We will be hosting events throughout the 2024-2025 church year to highlight our legacy of social justice, love in action, and freedom of belief. Keep an eye on this page for more information!
Upcoming 300th Anniversary Events
March 1 – The Membership Engagement Team’s Intergenerational Event, “Histories of Us”. For more info, please click HERE
March 9 – Brown Bag Lunch after service, with a Puritan sermon delivered by the Rev. Dr. Kazimierz Bem from First Church in Marlborough (Congregational) UCC
March 23 – During service. 1920s Universalist sermon, “The Five Pilliars In The Temple of Universalism” – written and originally delivered by Phyllis Barrett’s grandfather, Reverend Otto S. Raspe.
March 30 – 300th-themed Sunday Funday Service
Did you know?
Fun Facts about Unitarian Universalism, and UUCSW:
~Unitarians and Congregationalists are descended from the Puritans.
~The Rev. Ebenezer Parkman served as the first ordained minister of Westborough, Massachusetts, from 1724 – 1782. He was the reverend of the First Church of Christ in Westborough, from which both UUCSW and The Congregational Church of Westborough descend. You can find out more about Rev. Parkman at the Ebenezer Parkman Project website: https://www.ebenezerparkman.org/
~So what’s the difference between Unitarians and Congregationalists, you might ask? Good question! We have a long history with our Congregational siblings, but in the late 1700s, the Congregational church split into “Trinitarian Congregationalists” and “Unitarian Congregationalists”. There were a number of reasons, but one in particular is evident in the name: Unitarian Congregationalists believed that God was all-one, and rejected the doctrine of the Trinity.
~In 1849 we began to build our present building, and dedicated it in 1850. We are legitimately the First Congregational Society. Our friends across the street are legitimately the First Congregational Church. Both are parts of the Church that was founded in 1724.
See more about Colonial church history in Westborough HERE