Our Stories

Alexa Brown


University of Idaho graduate student

 

“I want to keep pursuing the questions. I don’t think that will stop when I leave here.”

“I’ve never been to a sermon like this – I’ve never been to a church like this,” was University of Idaho graduate student Alexa Brown’s response to attending a service at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse.

 

Alexa grew up attending an evangelical church in Michigan. She was looking for a church community on the Palouse, but never found a fit with the services she tried. Even with no prior experience with Unitarian Universalism, Alexa said she quickly saw the UUCP as a place where she belonged.

“Even though I might not stay here, I want to find another Unitarian community when I leave,” Alexa says. “I want to keep pursuing the questions. I don’t think that will stop when I leave here.”

 

Al Chidester

Big Al Chidester - Musician and radio host
Big Al Chidester – Musician and radio host

“You never have to make excuses for what gets said here. It’s all clear, what people are saying.”

“You never have to make excuses for what gets said here,” is how Al Chidester describes the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse. “It’s all clear, what people are saying.”

Al, better known on the Palouse and beyond as Fiddlin’ Big Al, is a local radio host, mechanic, book binder, artist and, of course, musician. Although he grew up attending a Southern Baptist church, he had friends who were Unitarians. “I always carried my Bible and a Unitarian friend said I looked like a believer. I said yes, I thought I was, and she said “Always remember there is more than one way.”’
In the UUCP, Al is surrounded by people who supported his beliefs and his actions, including Al’s protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline during the winter of 2016. “The best thing I ever did was go there,” he says. “All you have to do is just say yes when life presents you with something like that.”

Ryan Urie

Ryan Urie
Ryan Urie

“We knew we can’t do this all on our own. We need a community. Now, we come for the peace and feeling of belonging.”

This is a place where she can get messages of kindness and loving,” says Ryan Urie, regarding his 5-year-old daughter who participates in Spirit Play each Sunday. “She’s confidant at church and knows she’ll be accepted.”

Programs for children at every stage of their growing up was the main reason Ryan and his wife Brandi began attending the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse. “We came because we had a child and had become a foster family,” Ryan recalled. “We wanted the scaffolding to help kids move through the stages of life, not leaving it to chance.”

Since joining, the Urie family has discovered a community as well as children’s programming.

 

 

Margaret Dibble

 

Margaret Dibble
Margaret Dibble

“It’s a good place to find people sympathetic to the

things I’m interested in.”

“It’s a good place to find people sympathetic to the things I’m interested in,” says Margaret Dibble, who has been attending the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse since the early 1990s. “Things like social justice and environmental issues.”

Margaret’s association with the UUCP began with a talk at the church. That was when she realized she knew many of the people who attended. Over the years, she appreciated the way people hung together even through difficult conversations.

“I sometimes think the most amazing thing about the church is that I go to it,” Margaret says of the place she goes most Sundays. “I’m not a natural church goer. I’m neither religious nor spiritual.”