About UUFC

If you are seeking a religious home that honors each person’s religious journey within a framework of human dignity and self-determination, the UUFC might be the place for you.

If religious community is important to you and you value the creative and comforting interchange that happens only in community, but you chafe at the rigidity of orthodox religion, then the UUFC will be a breath of fresh air.

Our worship service begins at 10:00 AM, and there is a coffee hour immediately following the service. You can join us in person or remotely on zoom. During the service we offer infant and toddler care as well as programming for children and youth through high school.

When you visit us, please stop by our Welcome Table during, before, or after the Sunday worship service. Friendly hosts will answer your questions and provide other information about our congregation. You may also sign up for our email list, or get a name tag.

About Unitarian Universalism

Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion, with its roots in Christian and Jewish traditions. By liberal, we mean a religion that keeps an open mind to questions about purpose and meaning in our lives—questions people have grappled with for thousands of years. We seek answers to these questions in personal experience, conscience, and reason. These, we believe, should be the final authorities for truth, rather than a particular person, book, or institution.

We share common ground with other Unitarian Universalist congregations. Together, we affirm and promote seven principles that guide our exploration of life’s great questions:

In our search for truth and meaning in our lives, we draw from many sources of faith and wisdom, including:

Unitarian Universalism is a living tradition, so how do changes get made? For example, with our Purposes and Principles? Find out here!

Learn more about Unitarian Universalism by viewing these short videos:

Interviews with Unitarian Universalists at the 2010 General Assembly
Produced by “Krista Tippett on Being”

What Is a Unitarian Universalist? from On Being on Vimeo.

You can find more videos about Unitarian Universalism at: https://www.youtube.com/user/UUAElectronicComm.

Staff and Minister

Click on the images for details and contact info. (If no email is listed, email office@uucorvallis.org and we’ll pass on your message.)

Staff Contact and Bios

Reverend Jill McAllister began her tenure as senior minister of the UUFC in September 2013. At that time she was no newcomer to Corvallis or to the Fellowship, having been a member of the UUFC beginning in 1982, having been ordained to the ministry here in 1992, and having served as our associate minister from 1992 until 1998. 

Jill holds a BS from Duke University, an MA from Washington University, and a Master of Theological Studies from Mt. Angel Seminary. From 1998 until 2013, she was the lead minister at People’s Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her ministry there, according to her congregants, was transformational in a variety of aspects of church life, including Sunday worship, community building, stewardship, and social justice. Jill was also a key figure in the creation of ISAAC (Interfaith Strategy for Action and Advocacy in the Community), an interfaith group in Kalamazoo and an affiliate of the Gamaliel Network of grassroots, interfaith, interracial, multi-issue organizations working together to create a more just and more democratic society.

Jill has received several honors for her ministerial work. She helped found the International Council of Unitarian Universalists (ICUU), earning their Founder’s Vision Award in 2011. With People’s Church in Kalamazoo, she received the UUA Bennett Award for Congregational Action on Social Justice in 2012. She served on the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Association from 1990-1998,  has been a member of the National Clergy Advisory Board for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and has held many other leadership roles.Jill is married to the Reverend Walter Balk, a UCC minister, hospital chaplain and supervisor of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).  Their family includes three grown children and their partners, one grandchild, a boisterous dog and a chatty cat. Jill enjoys yoga, walking, music and reading- especially poetry.

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Jamie Petts is a welcoming, point-of-contact for UUFC members and friends. Joining the staff at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis in July 2016, she is the church’s informational “hub” by providing administrative support to the staff and the Fellowship, including helping all the functions of various departments work together, managing the use of our buildings and grounds by members and renters, maintaining databases, overseeing volunteers, and much more. She is also responsible for internal and external communications, including our weekly announcements.

Jamie holds a BA in International Studies (with a dual emphasis in Global Health and Global Resources & the Environment) from the University of Iowa, an MPH in International Health from Oregon State University, and also studied Medical Anthropology at Oregon State University. She has worked with a number of nonprofits, and is dedicated to helping people and organizations improve their well-being and community sustainability and livability.

Jamie enjoys yoga, hiking, photography, and reading. She and her husband, Dave, are both originally from Iowa, but consider Oregon home. When they are not working, you can usually find them outside with their young children doing activities like camping, hiking, biking, gardening, or rock climbing. (top)

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Skyla King-Christison joined the Religious Exploration team as the RE Coordinator in 2021, and moved into the position of Director of Religious Exploration in 2022. She recently entered the UUA’s Religious Educators Credentialing Program in an effort to bring the strongest skills possible to this dream job, and aims to finish the program sometime next year.

Since graduating from Middle Tennessee State University, Skyla has directed children’s choirs, taught chemistry, and worked in special education. She took some time off to home-school her own three kids, during which time she worked as an author, a workshop coordinator, and a digital planner designer. For the last five years, Skyla has offered restorative justice mediation for juvenile offenders in Benton, Linn, and Marion Counties.

It says Tennessee on her birth certificate, but Skyla is most at home in the fog and rain of the Pacific Northwest. When she’s not at the Fellowship, she can be found playing ukulele, reading in the hammock, painting birds, or wandering the wetlands near the house she shares with an intellectual property manager, three teens, two cats, and a chiweenie. (top)

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UUFC Music Director since 2013, David Servias holds MA and DMA degrees in piano performance from Washington State University and University of Washington respectively. He also earned an MA in teaching with an emphasis in choral music education from Oregon State University.

David has directed church and high school choirs, and has performed frequently as a piano soloist, chamber musician, accompanist and church musician. He’s been a rehearsal pianist for opera and musical theater productions, and has worked as a ballet accompanist. David has performed with orchestras, wind ensembles, chamber groups, jazz bands and jazz combos. He loves to play all styles of music, and enjoys adapting to any musical situation.

David previously was the music director at the Unitarian Universalist church in Moscow, Idaho, and has played piano at the Unitarian Universalist church in Kirkland, Washington, as well as numerous other churches in Washington, Idaho and Oregon. David currently teaches piano, music theory and aural skills at Oregon State University. He believes that music has great power to bring people together in community and appreciates the opportunity to serve the UUFC and lead its talented, enthusiastic choir members. (top)

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Lauren Servias has been the pianist at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis since January of 2013. She provides music at the weekly services and accompanies the UUFC choir.  Lauren is originally from the Midwest (Rockford, Illinois), but considers herself a Pacific Northwesterner after living in Washington and Oregon for the past fifteen years.  Lauren first came to the UUFC as their Acting Director of Music in 2012 during the search for their newest Director of Music, and served in this position for three months.

Lauren holds a Master of Music degree in Collaborative Piano Performance from the University of Oregon, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from Central Washington University, where she also studied voice and organ. She has performed with a number of performing arts organizations, including Tacoma Opera, the Oregon Festival of American Music, Eugene Ballet, and Cascadia Concert Opera. In addition to her work at the UUFC, Lauren maintains a busy performance schedule, teaches three courses for the Oregon State University Music Department and is the Music Director for the Corvallis School District Theater’s musical theater productions.

Lauren has held church music positions (pianist, organist, choir director, children’s choir director, band leader, and Music Director) at several churches over the past seventeen years. She finds playing for Sunday services extremely rewarding, as music plays such a large part in creating a spiritual atmosphere, and she enjoys the challenge of finding and playing music that fits and supports each Sunday’s theme and message. (top)

Board of Directors

The UUFC is self-governed by the congregation. In its Bylaws, the congregation delegates certain responsibilities to an elected Board of Directors. The Board meets each month to manage the affairs of the Fellowship. Its roles are to make policy, authorize expenditures within the annual budget, and maintain an overview of all Fellowship programs and projects.

Read the Board Meeting Minutes (opens a new tab)

Members of the Board of Directors are pictured below. 

Organizational Structure

The Role of Councils in Fulfilling the Fellowship’s Mission

The ministry of the Fellowship is expressed in our mission statement: “Explore. Love. Act. We gather as an inclusive religious community to search for meaning, build deep connections, and inspire action toward a better world for all.”

Ministry is not done only by the minister; we practice shared ministry at the  Fellowship.  To promote our shared ministry and fulfill our mission, we have adopted a council structure, which consists of teams that are parts of councils.

Teams and Councils

Teams are groups that do specific work to help fulfill our mission. They are made up of people who are passionate about a specific part of our mission. Examples of our teams are the Welcome Team, the Membership Team, the Grounds Stewardship Team, the Sunday Coffee Team, and the Immigration and Refugee Support Team.

To support the teams and coordinate their work, we created councils and assigned teams to each. A staff member works with each Council. Currently, we have seven councils:

• The Religious Exploration Council works to provide quality religious exploration curriculum and continually improve RE for youth and adults. Liaison: Religious Exploration Director.
• The Justice Council supports programs sponsored by the Fellowship related to social service, charity, environmental activism, and other justice issues. Liaison: Senior Minister.
• The Congregational Connections Council works to build deep connections among members of the Fellowship. Liaison: Senior Minister.
• The Financial Oversight Council provides informed, long-term financial guidance and oversight to the Board of Directors and the Fellowship. Liaison: Church Operations Manager.
• The Facilities Council oversees the work of administering and managing the physical and communication infrastructure that facilitates and supports Fellowship life. Liaison: Church Operations Manager.
• The Worship Council assists the Minister in structuring all aspects of worship on Sundays and at other times and venues and in developing ideas for variations in content. It is convened by the Minister.
• The Coordinating Council includes a representative from each of the other Councils plus primary Fellowship staff, the Board President, Treasurer, and others who represent major operational areas of Fellowship life. It is convened by the Minister with the goals of improving Council and overall Fellowship collaboration and communication.

The structure of governance at the UUFC is summarized in the figure below.

 

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Responsibilities of Councils and Teams

Council Responsibilities

The councils provide a home for the teams, which are actively pursuing their specific goals as part of the Fellowship’s overall mission. The councils offer a place for communication among teams to promote coordination, creative collaboration, and efficient use of funds. This reduces the chance of overlap or cross-purposes and increases the opportunities to improve achievement of goals. To promote communication, all teams within councils are encouraged to meet twice or more during the year to discuss activities and budgets.

Councils help improve team performance. Examples have been the provision of leadership training and the creation of opportunities for the teams to meet with the larger congregation.

Periodically, the Coordinating Council will hold a Leadership Meeting, to which chairs of teams, projects, and events or their representatives and other UUFC leaders participate. These meetings promote collaborative action and reduce overlap of activities.

Team Responsibilities

Teams renew themselves every year, in coordination with other teams in their councils. As part of the budgeting process, existing teams recommit to their missions and may request funding to help them accomplish their goals. As described in UUFC policy 1.2, unless teams renew each year, they lose their recognition as an official UUFC team. Groups of people who see a new way to serve the mission can develop goals and a budget and apply to a council to form a recognized team. For short-term projects, we also create task forces under the councils.

Budgeting

The budget development process is bottom up. Teams prepare budget proposals on the approved form in UUFC Procedures, and the councils then evaluate and combine team requests in consultation with their staff liaisons. Council leadership then meets with the “budget team,” which consists of the minister, the church operations manager, and the board treasurer, to discuss and potentially seek revisions to the council requests. The revised council budgets are then sent the Board, which after possible further revision puts the proposed budget before the congregation for affirmation. The full process for budget development is described in Policy 5.12.  

UUFC History

Our History – Beginnings, Growth, and Leadership

 

Our Fellowship began as a small discussion group in 1948. Members of the group came from Unitarian churches across the country. When Lon Ray Call, a Unitarian outreach minister from Boston, was traveling through the West, he met with us to explain the procedure for forming a Unitarian fellowship. The idea appealed to us, and we decided to create a Unitarian congregation.

During those first years, we met in the Memorial Union at Oregon State University and then at Harding Elementary School. Soon we decided to buy property and build our own building. We incorporated in 1954 as the Unitarian Fellowship of Corvallis.

When our members learned that surplus government buildings located at Camp Adair were for sale, we couldn’t pass up the bargain. We purchased two buildings and a 2¼ acre lot on Circle Boulevard. We cut the buildings in half, moved them by truck, prepared concrete foundations, and reassembled the pieces on our land in 1958. Neither Circle Boulevard nor Firwood Drive was paved at that time.

One building became the meeting hall. The other became the Religious Exploration building. Volunteers contributed architectural drawings, masonry, carpentry, and interior finishing. Meeting hall benches were constructed of two-by-fours and covered with heavy paper. At first, we met in the front half of the building and rented the back to a member who used it as space to build boats.

Time passed. We grew. In 1987 we expanded the kitchen, added the Fellowship Hall (sanctuary), offices, bathrooms, and the foyer. Later we expanded and renovated the Religious Exploration building. Our member Edith Yang, an architect, drew up the plans for the renovations. Other members landscaped our beautiful grounds.

Although the Unitarians and Universalists merged in 1961, we waited until the 1970s to add Universalist to our official title. Today, we are an autonomous member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), based in Boston. The UUFC is also a member of the Pacific Wester Region of the UUA, based in Brighton, Colorado.

Throughout our more than 70-year history we have had four senior ministers, one associate minister, three interim ministers and, now, a fifth senior minister. We share our building with the community for meetings, concerts, and ceremonies.

We have a thriving Religious Exploration (RE) program under the guidance of our RE staff. We use UUA and other curricula and the generous talents of dozens of parent and other Fellowship volunteer teachers.

We have numerous other educational and outreach activities focused on community service and justice, small group ministries, fundraisers, celebrations, a choir, and more.

Ministers of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis

• Jill McAllister, Senior Minister, 2013-present
• Joel Miller, Interim Minister, 2011-2013
• Leslie Chartier, Sponsored Student, 2011-present
• Gretchen Woods, Senior Minister Emerita, 1999-2011
• Student Intern Ministers with Rev. Gretchen Woods: Sarah Schurr, Barbara Stevens, and Lise Adams Sherry
• Fern Stanley, Interim Minister, 1998-1999
• Harry Green, Interim Minister, 1996-1998
• Arthur Dean Wilmot, Senior Minister Emeritus, 1979-1996
• Jill McAllister, Associate Minister, 1992-1998
• Student Intern Minister with Rev. Arthur Dean Wilmot: Barbara Cheatham
• Erling Duus, Minister, 1972-74
• R.C.A. Moore, Minister, 1967-1970
• Lay-led Fellowship 1948-1967.

Members of the UUFC who have become Unitarian Universalist Ministers:

Rev. Jay Atkinson, Rev. Lucy Hitchcock, Rev. Kate Rohde, Rev. Jill McAllister, Rev. Lynn Kelly Gardner, Rev. Monica Jacobson-Tennessen, Rev. Leslie Chartier.

MERCH

Check out the UUFC Merch Store! We have tee-shirts, hats, coffee cups, backpacks, umbrellas, and more!

These items make great gifts for your loved ones. Get the athletes in your family matching UUFC duffle bags. Nothing says “I love you” like the gift of a UUFC blanket.

Dress the whole family in UUFC-wear. Find clothes for every age. We even have UUFC infant onesies!

Accessibility

We are pleased to be able to offer a sanctuary that is accessible to people using wheelchairs, walkers, canes, and other mobility aids: our entrances have ramps and curb cuts, and there are designated “wheelchair parking” spaces among the seats in our sanctuary. We also acknowledge some accessibility challenges for people using mobility aids: our social hall can be crowded and difficult to navigate after services, not all rooms in our RE wing are set up for access by wider wheelchairs, and the second floor of our RE wing has only stairs and is not accessible at all to those who do not use stairs.

We ask people attending services and events at the UUFC to refrain from using scented products, but we acknowledge that this is not a request that will ever have perfect compliance.

Our services are also audible in our social hall, which has hardwood floors.

We have increased the number of accessible parking spaces in our parking lot, including some that are designed as accessible for Sunday mornings only.

We request that dishes at potlucks, bake sales, and other events with food bear ingredient labels so those with dietary restrictions may make informed choices about safe eating. We provide labels in our kitchen for this purpose.

Our bathrooms are all single user bathrooms. The five bathrooms on our ground floor are large enough to accommodate mobility aids and all have at least one grab bar near the toilet. One is fully ADA-compliant.

If you have additional questions or suggestions about accessibility, please contact the UUFC office at 541-752-5218 or office@uucorvallis.org.

Rentals

The Fellowship offers a variety of spaces for rent in our unique building, including classrooms, larger gathering halls, a kitchen, and large Sanctuary.

The Fellowship is dedicated to education, sustainability, social justice, the arts, and community-building. We welcome renters to enjoy our space – including individuals, nonprofit organizations, government entities, and the larger community – and hope that our renters will work with us towards these shared efforts.

A “rental” is for any person or organization that would like to use Fellowship space for personal events, recitals, talks, workshops, organizational meetings and events, etc. 

We are unable to rent space for weddings or funerals for non-UUFC members.

To rent Fellowship space, please follow the following steps: