YAM Coordinator
Meet the Young Adult Ministry Coordinator
Sarah Lenzi was raised Unitarian Universalist in the congregation of the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City. While her mother was also raised UU, Judaism and Catholicism lurk not too far back in her family line. Having stepped back from UUism for a time in high school, when Sarah went off to attend Williams College in Massachusetts she discovered a renewed need for a spiritual community and for an intellectual exploration of faith. She found a UU congregation and began attending services once again. She also began to take courses in Religion at her college. During her sophomore year, Sarah felt a pull to ministry and it was in this time that she truly began to consider that this might be her path for life. Sarah declared as a double major in Art History and Religion, having found two academic disciplines that overlap and intertwine in a way that delights her. Believing, too, that understanding comes not only through theory but also practice, Sarah spent a semester studying studio art in Florence Italy. After graduating from Williams, she lived in Dallas Texas for a year and worked at Greenhill School as an assistant teacher in the first grade and as co-leader of the middle school after-school program. While Sarah remembers her time in Texas fondly, she longed for the winters of the northeast and, frankly, to be back in school again. And so she applied for divinity school.
In the fall of 2004, Sarah began the Masters of Divinity program at Harvard Divinity School. In her three years there, she worked at a women’s shelter in downtown Boston, did a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education in Knoxville Tennessee, and met amazing friends and colleagues. HDS provided Sarah with three years of spiritual and religious, as well as academic and intellectual, growth. Deciding that she wanted to pursue her doctorate first, Sarah took courses that focused heavily on medieval Christianity and art and architecture. She applied to PhD programs, and that is how she landed here, in Philadelphia, where she is a first year student in the Religious Studies department of the University of Pennsylvania. Her work as an academic continues to focus on the intersections between religious experience, artistic expression, and architectural structuring of space.
One of the very first steps Sarah took when she arrived in Philadelphia was to find a UU church. She started attending services and met with Reverend Nate. She was delighted to find a community and a minister so warm and welcoming, and was especially delighted to find that she might use her talents in service of that community. Since December 2007, Sarah has been serving as the Young Adult Ministry Coordinator for First Church. In this role, Sarah works on scheduling activities for the Young Adults, reaching out to new young adult visitors, and planning, with her team, the programming and events that will be offered by the Young Adults and for the Young Adults. The ministry of working with Young Adults has been challenging and exciting for Sarah, and she has been so grateful for the opportunity to find a home and a purpose at First Church.
Previous page: Statement of Purpose and Goals
Next page: December 17, 2006