Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair
Senior Minister, Unitarian Church of Lincoln, Nebraska
About Oscar
Originally from East Lansing, Michigan, I followed a long path to ministry, joining Peace Corps and starting a career in the nonprofit world. After a major health event, I realized that ministry in the Unitarian Universalist Association was how I could best express who I was, while channeling my idealism into a faith and organization I have been a part of for over twenty years.
Unitarian Universalism is in a critical position right now. For fifty years, we have struggled with defining what we are not as an institution -not Christian, not creedal, not fundamentalist- sometimes at the expense of making a positive case for who we are as a faith. As we move out a period defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, our UU faith is uniquely positioned to speak to our broader society. American society is becoming increasingly pluralistic, and surveys of my generation express both a frustration with traditional forms of creedal religion and a longing for community. Unitarian Universalism can speak to that longing and frustration in a way few other denominations can, as we find ways to create communities based not on some dry statement of belief, but on shared appreciation of each individual and a shared search for meaning.
Since 2017 I have served as the senior minister at the Unitarian Church of Lincoln, Nebraska. Our congregational website is available at www.unitarianlincoln.org
Family
My wife Stacie and I met in a a graduate class on Governmental Budgeting at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Despite that dry beginning, over a decade later we are married with a daughter Ailish, and black lab, Teddy.
Stacie has remained in public policy, working as the Associate Director for Policy at the Center to Advance Palliative Care.
The library at Harris Manchester College
Doctor of Ministry
Wesley Theological Seminary (2023)
Masters of Divinity
Wesley Theological Seminary (2016)
CLINICAL PASTORAL EDUCATION
Carolinas Medical Center, Levine Children's Hospital
INTERNSHIP CONGREGATION
Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock
HOME CONGREGATION
First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
Selected Sermons
In addition to these highlights, since early 2020 all Sunday morning worship services at the Unitarian Church of Lincoln have been published at www.youtube.com/unitarianchurchoflincoln.
Academic Work
In early 2023, I completed my Doctor of Ministry in Church Leadership Excellence, at Wesley Theological Seminary. My training there focused on adaptive leadership, being comfortable living in the tension of unresolved questions rather than trying to jump directly to problem solving.
My final project, “Everything Brought to Speech: Oral History as Healing after Pandemic,” focused on a collaborative oral history built by over ninety members of the Unitarian Church of Lincoln. The text of the project is available here: “Everything Brought to Speech,” 2023.
I presented the research at the Annual Meetings of the Unitarians in the United Kingdom in April, 2023. The video of that presentation is available linked here, and through the Unitarian Church of Lincoln’s youtube site.