Scott Sammler-Michael has lived in many different places and had many different jobs. Born in 1962 in Jacksonville, Fla. under the name Edward Scott Michael, he has worked as a master electrician, a schoolteacher and a jazz musician. He's lived in New Jersey, Texas, Maryland, New Orleans and Connecticut.

On Aug. 15, Sammler-Michael will add one more residence and profession to his resume: new reverend for the Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church in Burke.

The church, established off Lakehaven Court in 1980, was looking for a new reverend to lead them after Rebecca Benner left in the Spring of 2007. Sammler-Michael, 46, had recently finished his master of divinity degree at the Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago and was in the market for a church to lead.

"Scott was light years ahead of the [other candidates], and they were all good," said Ed Jaffey, a member of Accotink Unitarian and co-chairman of the church’s search committee to find a new minister.

When a Unitarian church needs a new minister, he or she must come from outside that church’s congregation. This is done in order to ensure that no candidate can use his patronage as an inside track to the job, according to Jim Girard, who sits on the search committee. Sammler-Michael’s name was among three finalists selected by the search committee. All three members then preached at different Unitarian churches with search committee members in attendance. After witnessing his sermon and putting it up to a vote among the 120 to 130 congregates, he was approved unanimously.

"We were looking for a candidate that had energy and vision and really wanted to be engaged with the congregation. We thought he was the ideal candidate based on all of those things," said Girard.

A self-described lover of literature, poetry and music, Sammler-Michael's path to the Accotink church and his Unitarian faith was a long and frustrating one filled with questioning and doubt, some of it unwelcome at more traditional Christian churches.

Sammler-Michael recalled going to Sunday School as a youth, where he would re-read certain passages that had been read to the class and then question and challenge teachers on their interpretations. After several months, the teachers informed him that he should attend regular Sunday service and address his questions to the pastor. When he brought his questions and curiosity to the pastor, he was told he should go back to Sunday School. He left the church shortly thereafter.

"When I was a young man the religions that I encountered were usually religions of fear," said Sammler-Michael. "I didn't read the scriptures that way. I read them metaphorically, I read them for wisdom."

When a friend invited him to a beer and chili cook-off sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Harford County, Md. in 1999, Sammler-Michael said the congregants' friendly and non-judgmental approach to his beliefs caused an epiphany that led him to become a Unitarian and eventually enroll in seminary school at Meadville Lombard.

"The fact that they asked me what I believed and didn't tell me I was wrong, this was an answer to my striving," Sammler-Michael wrote in a biographical packet sent Accotink during the interview process. "I was searching for a spiritual home."

He elaborated on that point in person.

"When I discovered [Unitarianism], I discovered a religion of yearning. One that did not claim to have all the answers but might provide a way to find them," he said.

WHEN HE officially assumes his duties as reverend of Accotink Unitarian, Sammler-Michael hopes to bring along some of the wisdom and skills he has developed in prior professions.

In a biographical information packet sent to the church during its search for a new pastor, Sammler-Michael detailed the lessons he learned through his jobs and experiences: the organization and management skills picked up as a master electrician, the patience and articulation acquired as a teacher and college professor and a sense of social and economic justice derived from his time spent with patients suffering from AIDS and crushing poverty.

For Sammler-Michael, that sense of justice took the form of TUUL Belt, a national organization he founded after seeing the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. Frustrated with the government's response and wanting to put his skills as an electrician to use, he started reaching out, asking for donations and supplies that would eventually support a mission to New Orleans to help those who had lost their homes rebuild.

With over $32,000 raised and 40 members spread out across the country, TUUL Belt has scheduled a mission to New Orleans for October. There, Sammler-Michael will reach out to other local organizations, establish a foothold in the Big Easy and train his members in construction and electrical wiring.

"Our goal is to have a trained group of people who can respond to disasters. Folks who have construction skills, chaplain skills, organizing and fund-raising skills," he said.
Because he has yet to start his first day on the job, Sammler-Michael was hesitant to talk about any specific changes he would bring to Accotink's services. However, he did touch on the kind of attitude he hopes to bring to Sunday services in the near future.

"Sunday morning is that time to sit down and experience something different from what we experience during the rest of the week," he said. "We must deepen ourselves spiritually. That's what sustains you when you try to help your neighbors, because you left time to better yourself."