First Parish In Lexington Unitarian Universalist

Specialties

First Parish in Lexington offers quality religious education for children and teenagers, including comprehensive sexuality education, anchored in liberal, humanitarian values.

We meet every Sunday morning at 10:30 for worship services that focus on living passionate lives of engagement and compassion. Children’s religious education takes place simultaneously; children start in worship with their families and then go off to their program fifteen minutes into the service.

Community service and social justice are deeply valued by our membership, as is a non-​dogmatic approach to the great moral and religious questions. We help each other deepen our spiritual lives as we work to repair the world.

History

Established in 1692.

Our church is hundreds of years old, though our thinking is not.

Founded by the original English settlers in what was then Cambridge Farms, First Parish started out as the town church. Our meetinghouse was the place where the town gathered for business.

Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride ended at the parsonage of the congregation’s minister, the Rev. Jonas Clarke, where John Hancock and Samuel Adams were staying. Clarke was well known as a political as well as religious leader, having a role both in the American Revolution and in shaping the constitutions of Massachusetts and the United States.

The congregation voted to become Unitarian in 1829, as a further expression of its dedication to liberty.