“My Unitarian Journey” by Helena Bagwell, a young Unitarian from Crewkerne Unitarians, shared with her permission.

My name is Helena Bagwell and I have been a Unitarian all my life. I wanted to share with the wider Unitarian community how and why I am a Unitarian and my journey, showing what I get involved with as part of my journey through life as a Unitarian.

Firstly, I started my Unitarian journey when I was christened in the Crewkerne Unitarian Chapel. For many years after I was christened, I only went to a few services, mainly Christmas and Easter. Then, when I turned 14, I decided to start attending services more regularly. It was also at this time that I became a member of the Crewkerne Church community.

If people decide to become a member of the church, they can have a special section during one of the Sunday services dedicated to this. When it was my turn to become a member, I was given a certificate and a Bible. This Bible has helped me many times during my Unitarian journey. It helps me to understand the passages I’ve read due to the fact that underneath each page there’s an explanation of the passages I’ve just read on that page.

I decided to become more involved in the Unitarian community, at the age of 14, because at this time in my life I was going through some struggles, especially in finding who I was and where I belonged in the world. I was really shy at this time, making me feel unhappy. All I wanted was to have more confidence like others around me, but I was finding it difficult to do so.  It took me many years until this was finally achieved and I feel this was done through God. He guided me to the right people who would help me gain more confidence and help me find the ability to express myself more.

I also found that after several months of being a member of the Crewkerne Unitarian chapel the other people who came along to the chapel were very friendly and welcoming to anyone who decided to come along – whether just visiting, wanting to join or a long-time congregation member. They helped me to feel like I had finally found a place that I belonged, where I was able to share my views and opinions without being judged. I was also given the chance to take part in services, even lead services myself and a few years ago I took the memorial reef to the local remembrance Sunday service. This I felt was a great honor to take part in.

Taking a service can at first seem quite daunting as it is a big responsibility. You want to keep the service enjoyable so as not to bore people, but you also want them to be able to get something out of it that may give them food for thought – Something that they may not have thought of before or known a lot about. When I first started taking services, I was very nervous, so nervous in fact that you could see my knees knocking together and I kept making loads of mistakes. For example, I spoke too fast. This over time eased and the more services I took the better I got at it. It also helped that I had help from others in the church community who had plenty of experience in taking services as some of them had been taking services for years. 

There are several topics I like to talk about when I am taking service as these things are my passions. They include hymn singing, the environment and meditation. I love anything to do with nature and am a great believer in being environmentally friendly. I hate to see the way the planet is going with rising temperatures, erratic weather conditions and loss of animal habitats. I also love animals and nature. I want others to know about all these things too. It’s nice when taking services to be able to teach others about different subjects and to share my passions with them and also to share what I think and feel about God. I can share my favorite hymns and my favorite readings. Not just Bible readings, as with Unitarianism, we use texts from many religious sources not just the Bible. 

Finally, I love being a Unitarian and love meeting other Unitarians. I would never give it up for the world. I have certainly found my spiritual home.