Minister

The UUCLV has no settled minister at the current time

Intern Minister

We do not have an intern minister this year.

Associated Minister Rev. Dr. D. Björn Olson

Björn Olson, a native of Seattle, Washington, received his Bachelor of Arts from Seattle Pacific College in 1952, and his Master of Divinity from San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, California in 1955. Björn was ordained into the United Presbyterian Denomination that year. After serving churches in Wyoming, Washington and Idaho, Björn left the pulpit ministry and joined the field of Corrections in the state of Washington. In 1972, he received his M.A. in Sociology with an emphasis on Corrections. He became a Unitarian Universalist in 1973. In 1984, he received a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Oregon, Eugene, and in 1985 moved from Kirkland, WA to Bethlehem, PA and joined the UUCLV. In 1986, he joined the staff of the Mental Health Program of the Hunterdon Medical Center, Flemington, NJ, as a psychologist working with sexually abused children. In 1990, the UUCLV recognized his Presbyterian Ordination with a service of Reaffirmation of Ordination, which made him an ordained UU clergyman. He has been chair of several committees, including chair of the Board of Trustees.

He is currently the chair of the Membership Committee.

E-mail Björn

Associated Minister Rev. Stephanie Barnett

On June 13, 2004 Stephanie Barnett was ordained by UUCLV to the Unitarian Universalist Ministry and works as a full-time staff Chaplain at St. Luke's Hospital and Health Network. 

A 1997 graduate of   Lafayette College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology she continued her studies at Moravian Theological Seminary earning her Master of Divinity Degree in 2000.    After working for two years in the business world Stephanie returned to her ministerial calling by enrolling in the first of two year-long Chaplain Residency Programs at St. Luke’s Hospital Bethlehem Campus.  After completing the second Residency in August of 2004 Stephanie became the first staff chaplain at the St. Luke’s Hospital Allentown Campus where she has been since that time.

E-mail Stephanie

Associated Minister Rev. Sue Vollmer

The Rev. Susan Vollmer has been a member of this church since 1997. Sue is a community minister, working both as the Chaplain of the Inpatient Hospice Unit and in bereavement for the Hospice of the Visiting Nurses Assocation of St. Lukes.

Sue has a Masters of Divinity from Moravian Theological Seminary and  Masters in Pastoral Ministry from Boston College and is a Cranio-Sacral therapist. Sue completed her Residency as a Chaplain at St. Lukes Hospital, Bethlehem.

Sue has many years of ministry experience in family life education, marriage preparation, marriage enrichment, parenting training, and in teaching communication skills. As a counselor, Sue has worked with at-risk youth and their families and with children with special needs. She has training in addiction, co-dependency, trauma, and crisis intervention stress management. A published author, Sue and has spoken nationally on topics related to relationships, family, and communication.

 Every July Sue can be found hanging out with the UUMAC teens and "tweens", having taught "tweens" at the Unitarian Universalist Middle Atlantic Conference for two summers. She never misses a Teen sponsored "Night Owls" and the opportunity to have fun with her two sons and their "UUMAC family".

Sue currently serves our church as a co-chair of the Right Relations Task Force and by providing pastoral care.

E-mail Sue

Associated Minister Rev. Greta Browne

Greta has been a member of the UUCLV since the early  '80s when she attended at the Lechauweki site with her three children, Zeke, Sofia and Victor. This was her first contact with Unitarian Universalism and right away she felt called to the ministry. A circuitous path took Greta to the position (part time) of settled and ordained minister at the UU Fellowship of Pottstown where she has served since January 2000.  She continues to live in Bethlehem, with her husband Guy Gray.

Greta comes from a family of missionaries who served the Presbyterian Church in China , India and Brazil . She accompanied her parents as they served first in China , where her father was born, and then (after the Maoist revolution) in Brazil , where her mother was born. This global connection, along with a taste for the Romance languages, has led Greta to become involved with the ICUU (International Council of Unitarians and Universalists), especially with Brazilian and other Latin American UUs. She is also deeply committed to the Simplicity movement and has initiated a UU Community Ministry, Pirilampo, based on the personal, justice, and environmental values of that movement. Greta is also a Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in Bethlehem . She is involved with Peace, Justice, and Environmental issues through Lepoco and the Green Party, and sits on the Steering Committee of the Alliance for Sustainable Communities-LV. 

Non-Ministerial Professional Staff

Director Religious Education (DRE)

Tara M. Altenbach-Zrinski

Graduating summa cum laude in 2005, Tara M. Altenbach-Zrinski received the degree of Master of Theological Studies from Moravian Theological Seminary, where she received the Faculty Academic Achievement Award for her creative and intellectual contribution to the scholarship at MTS for her graduate thesis entitled, “To Touch God: A Thesis Exploring the Nature of God through the Practice of Reiki and the Path of Kabbalah in the Language of Ecstatic Naturalism.”  Tara has been a Reiki Master since 2003 and wanted to integrate the practice within her diverse exploration of the divine nature from an interdisciplinary perspective. 

Since graduation, Tara is pursuing the degree of Master of Pastoral Counseling at Moravian Theological Seminary to provide a means to explore human nature in a social and practical context that will inevitably inform her future scholarship in the field of Intertestamental Theology.  She currently is interning at the New Bethany Ministries where she counsels several residents, helping them to acclimate to shelter life, empowering them to meet their material needs and working to strengthen their spirit so that they may be successful in their post shelter lives. 

Tara places a great deal of importance on spiritual formation and religious education both for her own children and those within the community at large.  Her philosophy is such that the intellectual, moral and spiritual foundations with which we as a community provide for its children will inevitably provide for the overall peace and progress of the human process.  Like Tara’s theology, her philosophy of Religious Education is very process oriented.  Through the gift of her own children’s spiritual inquiries, Tara realized the importance and necessity that religious education plays in the emotional and spiritual growth of children which is why she sought the position of Religious Education Coordinator.

Tara welcomes parents and children to sit and discuss ideas they may have to enhance the religious education of the youth.  She believes that we are not alone in this process and as a community, we will help to shape and inform the future leaders not only of this church but also of the great communities within which we participate.

Church Administrator

Gayle Slivka

I moved to this area from Maryland, via Connecticut and New York State with my two children almost twenty years ago. I came to this job from the medical field, which I worked in for fifteen years; I felt it was time for a change.

I have become computer literate over the last year and am looking to improve on those skills over the next year or so. The computer is not as scary as I once thought.

Reading is a passion of mine which I don’t have much time for. I volunteer for a cat rescue group which keeps me very busy. I foster cats in my home (sometimes to many), take them to the vets, dispense medicine, clean litter boxes, do laundry, do adoption days every Saturday at Petco in Whitehall, field phone calls about our cats on the Petfinder website and in my spare time trap feral cats so they can be sterilized and returned to where they came from. I still have to have time for my own six cats, four are mine and two are my daughters.

My daughter currently lives with me as she made the decision to return to school, while working full time, so not much money left for rent.

My son has lived in Fort Lauderdale, Fl. for 5 years, working down there; it gives me a place to go on vacation. We talk on the phone frequently between visits, though it is always harrowing for me during hurricane season.