Our Ministers
Mark W. Christian, Minister
For Mark the call to serve our church as minister was a real homecoming as he not only is a native of Oklahoma City but also literally grew up in our Sunday School and church.
A Magna Cum Laude graduate of Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, he was called to serve this congregation in March of 2001.
Prior to serving our church, Mark was the settled minister to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Las Cruces, New Mexico (1997-2001) and intern minister at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa (1996-1997).
And prior to entering the ministry, Mark spent twenty years in the broadcasting industry--working at radio stations in Durant, Ardmore, Tulsa and Shawnee, Oklahoma. He spent the last ten years of his broadcasting career at Clear Channel Networks (KTOK) here in Oklahoma City.
Mark is the past president of the Mountain Desert District Chapter of the Unitarian Universalist Minister's Association and the InterFaith Council at New Mexico State University. He has previously served in several leadership roles for the Southwest Unitarian Universalist Conference and the Mountain Desert District of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
In 1998 he was awarded the Outstanding Sermon Award by the Unitarian Sunday School Society. He served as Unitarian Universalist History and Polity faculty for the Dwight Brown Leadership Experience in 1998 and 1999.
Mark is passionate about the growth of our church and the future of Unitarian Universalism in Central Oklahoma. He is actively involved with ministerial colleagues for other Unitarian Universalist Congregations as well as other religious traditions.
Mark, his wife, Linda, and son, Scott, live in Oklahoma City. Away from church, Mark's interests include bird watching, collecting and playing guitars, and assisting with his son's academic and sports activities.
Jonalu Johnstone, Program Minister
The Rev. Jonalu Johnstone serves as Program Minister of the church, devoting herself primarily to Adult Religious Education, Covenant Groups, and other programmatic aspects, including working with Lifespan Faith Development. Her commitment is transforming lives to transform the world.
An active covenant group facilitator and former Summer Co-Minister (in 2000), Jonalu joined the staff in 2002. She brings training and enthusiasm for congregational organization and growth, as well as a background in education.
As Growth Consultant for the Southwestern UU Conference (SWUUC), she helped small and mid-size congregations from Memphis to Houston to understand and address their particular strengths and challenges. Consulting for the UUA, Jonalu coordinated with the congregations of Dallas and Fort Worth the planning of a Metropolitan Strategy for Growth of Unitarian Universalism, a model that is imitated across the nation. She also served the Channing UU Church in Edmond as Consulting Minister for several years, where she has guided their visioning and long-range planning process.
A graduate of Harvard Divinity School and John Haynes Holmes Fellow, Jonalu was ordained in 1993 by the UU Fellowship of Greater Cumberland (MD), the lay-led congregation where she grew into UU leadership and began preaching. For more than six years, Jonalu served as minister of the James Reeb UU Congregation in Madison, Wisconsin, the second congregation she was involved in founding. (As a lay person, she had been a charter member of the Bull Run Unitarian Universalists in Manassas, VA.) At James Reeb, her activities included development and implementation of a Lay Ministry Program; founding of “Coming Out, Coming Together,” an interfaith religious group supporting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people; creating alternative Wednesday evening and early Sunday morning worship; and active participation in the congregation’s Racial Justice Group.
She has contributed leadership to various community and UU boards and committees, including Interweave Continental, the UU group supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender concerns; the Southwestern UU Conference Religious Education Committee and Board; and the UU Ministers Association Good Offices program. Outside the church, she is active with local food, especially the Oklahoma Food Co-op, where she was a founding member.
Before becoming a minister, Jonalu worked in mental health and special education in Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia, having earned a BS at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, and an MS at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Both she and her partner of more than 25 years, Jane Powell, a social worker and devout long distance hiker, have family in Oklahoma, one of the primary reasons they have settled in Oklahoma City.
Raised as a Southern Baptist, Jonalu retains trust in Spirit, in everyone’s ability to read and interpret for him/herself, and in congregational polity.
Richard L. Allen, Ph.D., Minister Emeritus
Richard L. Allen, Ph.D., was minister of First Unitarian Church from 1980 to 1994. He was 55 when called to our church. Raised in the Methodist Church, Dr. Allen decided in his late 30’s that he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life being an engineer. As he explains it:
"I was looking for more than that. I had a comfortable and not unsatisfying life, so it wasn’t an easy decision to make . . . I was living in Palo Alto, California at the time where I had become a Unitarian. It was my work in the church there that had been very satisfying. I’d found a group of people I liked. I had that not-uncommon Unitarian experience--‘These are my people!’ I didn’t know I had a people, but by the end of the service that first morning, my wife and I both had that feeling. It was almost like Saul on the road to Damascus."
It was from the experience at Palo Alto that Dr. Allen left his engineering position and started seminary at Harvard, with the intention of becoming a Unitarian minister. But, as Dr. Allen says, “I changed my mind while in seminary, went on to get a Ph.D. so I could teach, but when I got the Ph.D., there weren’t any faculty jobs. So I became a minister.”
Dr. Allen’s first church was in Honolulu, where he remained for four years before coming to First Unitarian Church in 1980. During the 14 years he was with us, the church went through several changes and “opportunities,” not the least of which was the collapse and financial problems associated with the Penn Square Bank. It was a difficult time, but with Dr. Allen’s leadership, the church continued and survived. It was Dr. Allen and his loving wife, Lois, who made us into a strong church community. Through Lois’ stewardship as Choir Director, the music program at the church flourished and continues as a strong part of our church today.
The First Unitarian Church celebrated its 100th Anniversary during Dr. Allen’s time with us and welcomed back many friends and several former ministers during the yearlong celebration. His retirement in 1994 was the culmination of a 14-year period of enlightenment for our church. As Dick would say, “You people were just what I needed, and I will always hold you deep within my soul as one of the most important parts of my life.”
Dick and his wife Lois retired to the San Francisco area, where they presently reside. Dick still preaches from time-to-time at UU churches in the area.
by Pat Corley
