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Meet Our Lay Chaplains

Our Lay Chaplains will work with you to create ceremonies for occasions of personal significance:

  • weddings, commitment ceremonies and renewals of vows
  • baby naming ceremonies, child dedications, and coming of age ceremonies
  • memorials, grave side ceremonies, and celebrations of life
  • other ceremonies such as coming out ceremonies, house blessings, retirements, and many others

The service you craft together will embrace and express your personal beliefs and values. We proudly offer services for interfaith clients and the LGBT community.

Lay Chaplains are registered with the Province of British Columbia to perform legal marriages. The services can take place here at the Unitarian Centre, at home or in public halls or gardens — any place that affords quiet and the privacy you desire. 

The Unitarian Community supports every individual’s personal search for truth and meaning. We believe that all people with or without a faith community should have the opportunity to mark and celebrate important moments in their lives in a way that reflects their values and spiritual beliefs. You do not need to be a member of our church, and we welcome all people. Want to learn more? Listen to the Lay Chaplains tell stories about their work.

Cheryl Amundsen

Cheryl has been a Unitarian since 1998. She and her husband chose it as a place where their children would grow up to appreciate a variety of spiritual ideas and learn to work with others from many different backgrounds. Cheryl is deeply committed to the Unitarian principles, particularly the emphasis on valuing diversity and protecting and supporting the natural environment.

Cheryl is Professor Emerita at Simon Fraser University. Her retirement from full-time work opens up a world of possibilities including taking on the role of Lay Chaplain.

Louise Bunn

Louise brings to lay chaplaincy a lively interest in and long experience with ritual and rites of passage. She has a particular interest in nature religions, wrote the Unitarian Universalist adult religious education curriculum “Paganism 101”, which is used across the denomination, and recently completed her master’s degree in “Myth, Cosmology, and the Sacred” at the University of Canterbury in the UK. She has been an active member of Unitarian Church of Vancouver since 1996.

Louise works as a sculptor and painter with a busy studio on Granville Island. In her artwork, she is inspired by the processes of change and transformation, and is interested in how we, as human beings, embed ourselves in the world, and find meaning during our time here.

“The realm of the artist is the frontier between the tangible world and the intangible one.” Federico Fellini

Laureen Stokes

Laureen has been a member of UCV since 2017.  She was delighted to discover an organization that promotes an individual’s search for meaning, and she embraces the seven principles.

By day, Laureen works as a Senior Engineering Technologist, and teaches at BCIT part-time.  She delights in the practical, everyday problems of building and construction, and thrives on the push and pull of construction projects.  In addition, she has education and training in Fine Arts, including sculpture and theatre arts, as well as Communication Studies.  Lay chaplaincy allows her to connect with people in a different way, knitting together her creativity, love of storytelling and theatre, and her delight at building relationships with people.

You can listen to her recount her story of the Camino de Santiago here.