The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has chosen the Rev. Dr. Natalie Maxwell Fenimore to receive the 2025 Angus H. MacLean Award for Excellence in Religious Education.
The Rev. Dr. Natalie Fenimore speaking at the UUA’s 2018 General Assembly.
The MacLean Award honors individuals for vision and leadership in lifespan faith development at the local and associational level and for uplifting the profession of religious education. A committee led by Nao Bethea, UUA Co-director of Lifespan Faith Engagement, selects recipients.
Rev. Dr. Fenimore is Lead Minister and Minister of Lifespan Religious Education at The Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock in Manhasset, New York. She has served as a director of religious education, parish minister, and minister of religious education in UU congregations in Maryland, Virginia, and New York since 1998.
A past president and a Good Officer of the Liberal Religious Educators Association (LREDA), Rev. Dr. Fenimore is an author of many UU religious education curricula, professional development for religious professionals, meditations, and readings. She has served as a Trustee for both the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association (UUMA) and the Starr King School for the Ministry.
Award Citation for Natalie Fenimore
For sharing with Unitarian Universalism her honesty, grace, and wisdom; for centering religious education as a core practice in serving congregations, mentoring others, and championing Associational change; for the sum of her service to this faith in love and struggle, the UUA on June 22, 2025 presents the 52nd Annual Angus H. MacLean Award for Excellence in Religious Education to Rev. Dr. Natalie Maxwell Fenimore.
This award recognizes Rev. Dr. Fenimore for:
●Congregational service of more than a quarter century as a director or minister of religious education, culminating in being called as Lead Minister to the UU Congregation of Shelter Rock in Manhasset, New York.
●Collegial leadership, mentorship, and support through the Liberal Religious Educators Association, in roles from President to Good Officer.
●Leadership as a Trustee for both the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association and the Starr King School for the Ministry.
●Shaping our faith as author, teacher, and guide, through Renaissance Modules, curricula from Tapestry of Faith through the UU Common Read, meditations, readings, essays, and the Commission on Institutional Change’s report, Widening the Circle of Concern.