ULC History - Overview

From In the Beginning

Universal Life Church History - From Day One To Today

Reverend Kirby Hensley grew up in a Christian home in Western North Carolina. For over 65 years he studied and preached religion throughout the United States. He was a very educated man despite the fact that he could neither read nor write. Indeed, his classroom was the world & he was a student of Life. Rev. Hensley was ordained in the Baptist Church at an early age. After preaching for several years he left the Baptists and started attending Pentecostal Churches in the area. This is where he met his first wife, Nora. They had two daughters. He pastored in Oklahoma and California and established several churches. After his divorce he returned to North Carolina. After a short time there he was introduced to Lida, the woman he described once as the "only woman I truly loved." During their 46 year marriage union they had 1 daughter and 2 sons. It was only a short time after returning to California with his family in tow that Rev. Hensley began to wrestle with the idea of forming a church accessible to all people. He began the Universal Life Church in 1959 with the idea that all people should be accepted regardless of their faith and remained as President of the Church until his passing March 19, 1999.

Hensley fought in the courts for the universal right to life and preached throughout the United States for sixty-five years, dying in 1999 after seeing his message reach the entire world through the Internet.

The Movement

By 1977 the ULC revivalist movement had exploded and that is when the Universal Life Church Monastery (ULCM) was founded by Br. Martin to accommodate the personal needs of the homeless, marginalized and disenfranchised individuals, New Age seekers and newly ordained ministers. Through monastic training, Headquarters for the progressive Universal Life Church Monastery located in Seattle, Washington, legally ordains more ministers than any other church in the world. We here at the Universal Life Church Monastery carry the torch from Hensley's generation to a new generation.

Today, under the direction of our presiding Chaplain, our dedicated team members & ministers throughout the world; we champion the underdogs and the oppressed just as the legacy of Christ, King, Kennedy, Mother Theresa and Gandhi taught. There are no other International churches with the proven history of devotion to ministers for the sake of their own ministries such as this. Our ordained ministers, independent congregation members, or ministry leaders, while accountable to each other, do not bow before or kiss the rings of a hierarchy set of leaders. This is because we believe that we are ALL Equal Universally. We meet the needs of our ministers and bless their calling, whether they intend to change the world or to simply officiate a wedding for a loved one in their new found capacity as a legally ordained minister of the Universal Life Church Monastery.

With members around the globe we have an active Ministers Network and the largest worldwide web presence of any non denominational church. Our outreach campaigns & legal defense teams tirelessly work to aide the hungry and the poor, the discriminated against and the environment. We Hate what the institution of organized religion has done to our youth & to our planet. We will not stop until the kingdom of heaven is Here on Earth!

The Universal Life Church Monastery will not stand between you and your God and we recognize that each minister and clergy member has the right to choose his or her own spiritual path. Each minister legally ordained by the ULC Monastery is at liberty to follow any religious path so long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others.

And so The Movement marches on.... Will You Join Us?

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today, at home and around the world! - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

--Br. Daniel Chapin, ULC Monastery Vice President (On Behalf of Our Presiding Chaplain & Team) 00:04, 14 October 2009 (UTC)