Meet the Shared Ministry Team Members

Original members of SMT: Jim Hollowood, Sarah Cheverton, and Bernie Mathes.

Sarah Cheverton, David Lane, Jeanine Sellers, and Bernie Mathes are the current memebers of HUU’s Shared Ministry Team.  In each member of the team, the Board’s nominating committee saw the spirit of shared ministry and voluntary contribution already at work. Contact the Shared Ministry Team.

Sarah Cheverton

Sarah Cheverton has been in the Shenandoah Valley since 1985.  She became acquainted with Unitarian Universalism in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s while touring with Windfall, a folk band that played up and down the east coast, mainly in UU churches.  She joined HUU around 1998 and has been actively involved in the congregation ever since.  During her time at HUU, Sarah has served as a board member, as chair of the Social Justice Committee, and as a Java Jam organizer and choir member.  You might also know her as “the coffee lady” who has led HUU efforts to participate in the Equal Exchange Fair Trade “business” for the past four years. 

Sarah has agreed to serve on the Shared Ministry Team because, in her own words, “HUU is an important community in my life and others' lives; I want it to develop and grow. I admire the thoughtful and thorough work of the Shared Ministry Task Force and would like to see their vision realized.”  As a grown-up “preacher’s kid,” the church community has always been important to Sarah, and even though she never really connected spiritually to the Christian faith, she has always enjoyed participating within a church community.  She feels fortunate that, in HUU, she has finally found a faith tradition in which she genuinely feels comfortable.

Sarah’s career is in professional development and training.  She has worked in the Center for Instructional Technology at James Madison University for ten years and was recently promoted to the Director position.  Sarah enjoys playing music with the band blue stone sky and lives in the Ottobine area with her partner, Pam, and their two dogs and five cats.

Bernie Mathes

Bernie Mathes and her husband, Lincoln Gray, moved to Harrisonburg in 2005 when Lincoln began teaching at James Madison University.  They joined HUU that fall and have been active participants in the life of HUU.  Prior to life in Harrisonburg, Bernie and Lincoln were members of Emerson Unitarian Church in Houston, Texas, for more than twenty years.  During her time at HUU, Bernie has been a member of the Sunday Services Committee (and currently serves as chair), has been an active choir member, and has filled in on the piano.  Bernie also served on the Shared Ministry Task Force with David Lane and Julie Caran.  She agreed to continue her service in the role of a Shared Ministry Team member in order to provide a thread of continuity to this new embodiment of ministry at HUU.  Bernie became involved in Shared Ministry because she has been impressed with “the many ways our congregation ministers to each other and the larger community.”  She explains, “I’m excited to help deepen this ministry and strengthen our connections to our local community and the Unitarian Universalist Association.”

When not at HUU, Bernie works as the Social Work Coordinator at the Harrisonburg Free Clinic.  Her professional training is as a Clinical Social Worker, though she spent much of her time in Houston directing an Early Literacy program at Rice University.  Bernie and Lincoln have two daughters.  Emily, in graduate school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is getting married this summer.  Katherine, who teaches at Fishburne Military Academy, occasionally sings at HUU.

Current members of the Shared Ministry Team: Sarah Cheverton, Michael Quayle, David Lane, Jeanine Sellers, Bernie Mathes (not pictured).

David Lane

I was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1945 and have lived here in Harrisonburg since 1969.  As an undergraduate, I attended the University of Michigan with English Literature as my major.  After moving to Virginia, I attended James Madison University where I received my M.Ed. in Secondary Education.

I taught English for 30 years at Fort Defiance High School in Augusta County before joining the JMU College of Education as an instructor in 2002.  At JMU I have had the great privilege of working with future teachers both in the classroom and in the field.

My partner, Grayson Sless, first told me about HUU some 15 years ago, and after attending for a year or so I became a member.  Since then I’ve served on the Membership Committee, the Board of Trustees, the Strategic Planning Task Force, and now the Shared Ministry Team.  I’ve also attended General Assembly during many of those years.  My experience at HUU has consistently demonstrated the power of religious community to challenge, support, and transform lives, my own included.  I count myself among the most fortunate of souls, having found what Karen Armstrong has called “the good company” of Unitarian Universalists.

Jeanine Sellers

Jeanine Sellers grew up in a large German-Catholic family of nine children in rural northwestern Pennsylvania.  She has lived in the Shenandoah Valley since 1992.  After a many-year hiatus from church-going, she feels fortunate to have found HUU, a place that “feels right.” She has been a member since 2010.  She currently serves on the CYCORE committee and the Welcoming Congregations Task Force.

Jeanine has a master’s degree in counseling psychology and worked for 11 years in student affairs at JMU.  These days she is very involved in the lives of her children Jack (8) and Audrey (7). She has been married to Clint Sellers, who is also a member at HUU, for 10 years.  Her family enjoys returning to Pennsylvania a couple of times a year to spend time at the lodge and tree house her father built in the woods near the Clarion River. 

Contact the Shared Ministry Team Members

• Bernie Mathes
• Sarah Cheverton
• David Lane
• Jeanine Sellers
• Shared Ministry Team (all members)