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The Rev. Victor Carpenter comes to the First Religious Society with a wealth of experience and tremendous enthusiasm. He hails from such diverse ministries as South Africa in the early 1960s in the time of apartheid, Philadelphia in the later 1960s at the time of terrible riots, to many years serving several New England UU churches and also a time in California at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Participation has been a theme in Carpenter’s life. Among his many activities he served many years as President of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Chair of the Witness for Peace in the Middle East (1990-1993) and Chair of the UUA Task Force on Disability (1994-1998). In an interview with the Hingham Journal in 2005, when he was beginning his interim ministry at Hingham’s Second Parish church, he spoke of his time in South Africa: “I … read in a ministerial newsletter that a Cape Town, South Africa, church was seeking a minister. That got me wondering what it would be like to live in a less than optimum democracy.” He went on to say, “It was terrible there…. I did what I could by becoming involved in organizations to funnel legal help to individuals accused of political crimes.” Asked about his decision to become a UU minister, Rev. Carpenter said, “I don’t think I chose it; it’s more like it chose me. I just wandered in the door of a church after getting out of the Marine Corps before going to divinity school. I didn’t realize it was a UU church when I walked in, but I liked what I heard….” About joining the First Religious Society Rev. Carpenter says his main goals are to “help the congregation assess problems and opportunities; where it is and where it wants to go.” He’d like to “encourage a positive vision of the congregation’s future and identify what it needs to do to achieve it.” He says one of the things he enjoys about being an “interim” is that the congregation and interim minister are able to move together in the direction of the goals the congregation has set for itself, since the job is well-defined. He adds, “As one wit observed, interim ministry is great because the people who love you tell you so and the people that don’t keep quiet because they know you are leaving.” The First Religious Society in Carlisle is honored to welcome
“Vic” Carpenter as its Interim Minister.
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