John H. Sanford, Universalist minister and newspaper
publisher, could be considered the father of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater
Lansing. In 1847 he came to Lansing from Ann Arbor and formed a Universalist society. He
was also the publisher of Lansings first newspaper, The Primitive Expounder.
On March 16, 1849 the churchs incorporation papers
were signed. In 1852 the Rev. C.W. Knickerbocker came to Lansing to serve the society as
its minister. In a meeting at the Capitol on October 24, 1852, the society adopted a
constitution and by- laws. There were about 65 members and services were held in the
Capitol building or in a Lansing school.
In 1863 a brick church was built and dedicated at the
corner of Grand Avenue and
Allegan Street. The cost of construction was $6,000. Thirty years and eleven ministers
later a new church was built on the corner of Capital Avenue and Ottawa Street. The land,
on which the church was built, was deeded to the congregation by Sarah Vanderroot Emery. A
rose window was placed in the north wall of the building in her memory.
[photos: Universalist churches in Lansing]
It was here that Augusta Jane Chapin was ordained and
served as minister from 1881-82. The Rev. Chapin was the second woman ordained in the
Universalist Church and the first woman in the country to be awarded an honorary doctor of
divinity degree. (Olympia Brown was the first woman to be ordained a few months before
Chapin. )
.The Universalists had a cordial relationship with the
congregation of the Plymouth Congregational Church. During the years 1927-32, the two
churches held joint services, co-sponsored famous speakers and the choirs performed
together. During the depression, the Universalists considered merging with the
Congregationalists.
Several different Lansing buildings have been home to the
Universalist congregation over the years. In her history, Ideas Have Consequences, 125
Years of the Liberal Tradition in the Lansing Area, Jerry Thornton wrote that the
Universalist Church had its ups and downs during the early years. The original church
property was sold for financial reasons after the panic of 1893. The 1930s depression
effected the church with ministers taking pay cuts and accepting promissory notes. A
merger with the Plymouth Congregational Church was considered.
By 1935 church membership had shrunk to 71 members.
According to Jerrys history, it was the hard work of the women of the church that
held the congregation together. Their projects raised funds for the church. They also
cleaned and refurbished the church building .
During the 1940s several Unitarian families moved to the
Lansing area from Ann Arbor. They founded the Unitarian Fellowship of East Lansing and
Mason, affiliating with the American Unitarian Association in March 1949. In 1957, Lansing
area Universalists and Unitarians merged four years before the national merger took place.
In 1971 the church purchased the former fraternity house at
855 Grove Street and for a period of time shared the space with Kehillat Israel, a Jewish
congregation now located in Lansing.
Over the years the congregation has worked to make this
space meet the needs of our congregation. Interior walls were removed and dorm rooms
transformed into religious education classrooms. Long-time members remember when a wall
divided what is now the fireplace room and the joy we experienced when it was removed in
1975.
The assembly hall, the front entrance and the Marion
Vaughan Parlor were added in 1983-84. Mortgages on the building were paid off in 1996.
For some years the church rented out upstairs rooms as
office space. We reclaimed this space, and former caretaker apartment, for classrooms in
2001. Today the Peace Education Center has an office in the basement and Fellowship For
Today has space on the third floor and holds services here on Sunday evening.
A group left this church to form All Souls UU Church in an
effort to serve a more diverse congregation and to become more socially active. It did not
survive.
Since 1847 this church has had 40 ministers and
coordinators, both settled and interim, leading the congregation. Over this same time, the
congregation has met in nearly a dozen different locations.
Since the arrival of Rev. Kathryn A. Bert as
our minister in 2002 our congregation has grown to its current, ever-growing size of over
350 members, and approximately 200 friends.
Archives Committee
Unitarian Universalist
Church of Greater Lansing
855 Grove St. | East Lansing, MI 48823 | 517-351-4081
email: office@uulansing.org