• The First Universalist Church of Lansing formed on March 16, 1849, and initially met in the Senate Chamber of the State Capitol. This was in Michigan's second Capitol building that was erected in 1847 on the block now bordered by Washington and Capitol avenues, and Allegan and Washtenaw streets in Lansing.

In 1864, Rev. Augusta Jane Chapin was ordained. She 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. Rev. Chapin was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 2010. She is the namesake of our Chapin meeting room.

• During the 1940s, several Unitarian families moved to the Lansing area from Ann Arbor and founded the Unitarian Fellowship of East Lansing and Mason.

• In 1957, Lansing-area Universalists and Unitarians merged, four years before the national merger took place, becoming the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lansing (UU Lansing).

• UU Lansing was located at 855 Grove Street, East Lansing, MI starting in 1971, but outgrew the building and parking lot. In 2016 the church moved to its current home at 5509 South Pennsylvania Ave, Lansing, MI. If you would like to learn more about this part of our history, please follow this link for a description of the search for a new location and the process of renovation of an old school building.

More Resources

A more complete description of our history is available for download in a Short History PDF .

In 1974 (125th anniversary) Jerry Thornton, one of the founders of the Unitarian Fellowship, wrote of the impact of liberal religion – “Ideas have Consequences”.

Download or read the full text here-Ideas have Consequences full text

Download or read a condensed version is available here-Ideas have Consequences condensed