Susan, a retired French teacher, found WCUC in 2010 after many discouraging months of looking for a church home. “By the time I came to West Concord I had almost given up,” she remembers. “But the first Sunday I was there, I thought, ‘This really feels like home.’ It just did. I felt very welcomed right from the beginning.”

Susan also likes the music, the beautiful sanctuary, the inclusion of people with disabilities, and having a young woman as the minister. “I get a message from Hannah’s sermon that I can carry around for the week and think about. I find that very nurturing,” she says.

In 2011, Susan joined the church and became a trustee. She quickly initiated and oversaw the renovation of North Hall. “What was thrilling to me was there was never an attitude of ‘Who does she think she is? She just got here!’”

“People arrive as they are and they’re accepted for who they are,” Susan says. “I’ve never felt I had to change anything or really verbalize a set of beliefs that I’m not comfortable with.”