Young Adult Bart Frost has served the Unitarian Universalism (UU) and the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) in leadership positions since he was a youth. He now chairs the General Assembly Program Committee (GAPC), the body responsible organizing and running GA. We re-post this profile of Bart Frost appearing in UU World online, the magazine of Unitarian Universalism.–Ed.

For young leader, General Assembly is a spiritual practice

For Bart Frost, the Unitarian Universalist Association’s annual General Assembly is something special.

“It’s a spiritual practice for me. I love the worships at GA,” Frost said. “It is the business meeting of our faith, that’s according to our bylaws, and that’s a really big part of it. But it’s also meeting people, networking, the chance to worship, to educate about justice, ARAO [anti-racism and anti-oppression work], to sing, to help build congregations and congregational leaders. General Assembly does a lot for Unitarian Universalism, and that’s one reason I like being a part of it.”

Frost is more than just a part of it, though. He has served on the General Assembly Planning Committee since 2009, and has been the chair since 2013. The General Assembly Planning Committee (GAPC) is tasked with organizing and running the event in cooperation with the General Assembly and Conference Services staff of the UUA and other groups. The 2014 General Assembly will be held June 25-29 in Providence, R.I., and the theme is “Love Reaches Out.” Registration for the event opened March 3.

At 27 years old, Frost is an influential young leader in the UUA, but he’s been doing leadership work in UU circles for a long time already. Jan Sneegas, the UUA’s director of General Assembly and Conference Services, first met him when he was a youth caucus member who attended GAPC meetings.

“From the beginning, Bart presented as somebody who was very smart, very thoughtful, and extremely knowledgeable about the way UU systems work,” Sneegas said. “And did I say that he’s wicked funny, too? He knows how to use humor to defuse tension and can see the ridiculous as well as the sublime, which is helpful in this work.”