Rev. Cornell Brooks At First UU Church, February 5, 2012

The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Essex County, 35 Cleveland Street in Orange, New Jersey will welcome the Rev. Cornell Brooks, President and CEO of The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, as its featured speaker at Sunday worship on Feb. 5 at 10:30 AM. The public is invited.

The theme of the sermon will be “An Uncertain Recovery, Unrealized Dreams and Unrepentant Hope.”  Rev. Brooks will be preaching about a seeking a just economic recovery as well finding the strength to pursue justice when both jobs and even hope are in short supply.

The Rev. Brooks, a fourth-generation ordained minister, was honored as a Martin Luther King Scholar at Boston University School of Theology. He later earned a JD from Yale Law School. He currently serves on the Boards of East Orange General Hospital and the NJN/Public Broadcasting Authority. He previously served as senior counsel for the Federal Communications Commission and as a US Department of Justice trial attorney, where he secured at the time the largest government settlement for victims of housing discrimination.

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice was founded ten years ago in Newark as an urban research and advocacy organization dedicated to the advancement of New Jersey’s urban areas and residents. It has advocated and helped pass legislation to aid previously incarcerated persons to rebuild their lives and has created WomenBuild, a program that trains women in non-traditional fields of employment.

The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Essex County is a life-affirming liberal religious community that keeps an open mind to the religious questions people have struggled with at various times and places. We believe that personal experience, conscience and reason should be the final authorities in religion. And that in the end religious authority lies not in a book or person or institution, but in ourselves. Please join us Sunday mornings at 10:30 AM, September though June, for fellowship, music and conversation.

The First UU Church has been at its location just off Main Street in Orange nearly 120 years. In 2007 it hosted a celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the desegregation of the Orange School system and more recently a benefit concert for Haitian relief. A number of organizations share its facilities, including religious groups and Lanbi, a Haitian community center. The Rev. Darrell Berger is on the Board of Directors of Valley Arts, which is dedicated to the revitalization of the community.

For more information call the church at 973-674-0010 or visit www.essexuu.org.