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New pastor starts at Bethesda church

Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Rachael Golden⁄The Gazette The Rev. Heather Janules is the newest minister at the Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda.

‘‘It wasn’t something that was out of the blue,” said her father Bob Janules. ‘‘She’s always thought of other people...was always concerned. For Heather, if the pull is strong, she’ll go there.”

These days, Janules can be found preparing for sermons at the 870-member Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda, or visiting sick parishioners in the hospital. She even organized a group of protestors from the church to attend a Sept. 24 anti-war rally in Washington D.C.

Still, the 33-year-old, who started her first pastoral job in September with zest, said her journey to the ministry wasn’t always so sure.

‘‘Every minister has the story of their calling, and some people knew when they were young children,” said Janules, who led her first service on Sunday. ‘‘I am not one of those people.”

Her family had Catholic ties, but Janules didn’t grow up in the church.

Instead, the values she’d learned in her hometown of Merrimack, N.H., were of a more secular, leftist leaning.

At Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., where she attended college, Janules took classes about the media, creative writing and sociology and considered becoming a therapist or a writer.

Given her skills and drive, and the career options open to young women today, Janules could have chosen from a variety of professional fields.

But a conversation with a college friend, who was a Christian, changed her mind.

‘‘I assumed I knew how [my friend’s] religious community functioned. She challenged me on a lot of those assumptions,” Janules said. ‘‘She made the point that a lot of left-winged political types may be joined together in political activism, but when one of them is ill, who brings them a casserole? Out of those conversations I started to wonder, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I could find a church that supported my values, but also one that provides the support and nourishment I’m not finding in liberal politics?’”

After graduation Janules moved to Boston and, at the suggestion of another friend, started attending a Unitarian Universalist Church. She was drawn to the church’s religious values and its focus on equality and diversity.

Indeed, the Unitarian Universalist church has supported women’s rights since 1863, when the denomination accepted its first female pastor, said Janet Hayes, information officer of the Unitarian Universalist Association, a Boston organization that supports the more than 1,000 Unitarian Universalist churches across the country.

Currently, nearly 60 percent of ministers in the Unitarian Universalist church are female, Hayes said.

Over the next seven years, Janules worked at a coffee shop, an insurance office and a social service agency, but realized she wanted to join the ministry.

She enrolled and spent three years at Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, Ill., and one year interning at a church in Pennsylvania.

In the month she’s been at Cedar Lane, parishioners said Janules has shown an enthusiasm for her work.

‘‘I was in a [church-related] meeting [with Janules] and she just had one good idea after another,” said Silver Spring resident, Ellie Goodwin, who has attended the church 18 years and was on the committee that interviewed Janules. ‘‘She brings a lot of fresh energy. We’re hoping she will attract young adults, build relationships with young people in the community.”

Janules hopes to build relationships with everyone at Cedar Lane — where most members are elderly — regardless of age.

The path to ministry has not always been easy, but it is her calling, Janules said.

‘‘I could get a different degree, make a lot more money,” she said, ‘‘But this is the only thing that feels right.”