Reverend Diane D. Teichert
Minister
The congregation called the Rev. Diane D. Teichert to serve as its minister in August 2009.
She served Massachusetts congregations in Bedford, Canton (for ten years, during which it became a Welcoming Congregation and organized for marriage equality) and Weymouth, and had also worked at the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) headquarters in Boston. In the spring of 1996, she received her Masters of Divinity from Harvard University Divinity School and was ordained by the First Parish of Wayland, Massachusetts, her internship congregation. She completed chaplaincy training at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean (psychiatric) Hospital.
Diane has served the Unitarian Universalist movement on the Ballou Channing District (southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island) Board; as president of the BCD UU Ministers Association (UUMA) chapter; on the Compensation, Pension and Benefits Committee of the UUA representing the UUMA; as an internship supervisor and ministerial mentor. She received the 2003 Skinner Sermon Award for the sermon that "best expresses Unitarian Universalism's social principles" and first prize in the health insurance sermon contest sponsored by the UUA's Office of Church Staff Finance in 2005.
Prior to starting theological school, she worked at local, city, state and national levels as a community organizer (in Baltimore and later in Chelsea, Massachusetts) and as a labor organizer (she started successfully racially-integrated chapters in Baltimore and Atlanta of 9to5, the National Association of Working Women, and later was its national director of organizing). In 1974, she earned an undergraduate degree from the College of Wooster (in Ohio), where she participated in her first anti-racism training, and spent semesters at the New College of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and at Koinonia in Americus, Georgia.
Diane says her best spiritual practice in preparation for sermon-writing is a bicycle ride along the tributaries of the nearby Anacostia River, with runners-up being gardening and yard work. She enjoy times of quiet prayer, reflection and silent retreats; visits with long-time friends and family; biking, hiking and body-surfing in the ocean; and making new friends in Maryland.
Contact Diane at minister@pbuuc.org.
