Sermon delivered by Reverend Martin Woulfe on March 10, 2013. Rev. Woulfe was raised in the Chicago area in the Roman Catholic tradition. Martin joined the First Unitarian Society of Chicago in 1987 and several years thereafter enrolled in the Meadville-Lombard Theological School. While completing his Masters in Divinity coursework, which included a chaplaincy at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and an internship at the Countryside UU Congregation, Martin was granted preliminary fellowship as a UU Minister by the UUA's Ministerial Fellowship in 1998.

Martin served for two years as the Interim Minister at the Unitarian Universalist Community Church in Park Forest, Illinois; the members there ordained him in March 2003. Prior to that settlement, Martin worked as an on-site house parent of a group home for teenagers comnnected with Maryville Academy. He also worked at Maryville's Emergency Service Shelter for abused and neglected youth, both during and after his seminary training.

Martin was called by a congregational vote to serve the Abraham Lincoln Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Springfield, Illinois as their first full-time settled minister. He and his wife, Angela, and daughter, Celeste, moved to Springfield in the summer of 2003 where he assumed his duties in August of that year. Martin can be reached at Minister@ALUUC.org.