Meet Rev. Duncan Teague | Minister and founder of Abundant Love Unitarian Universalist Congregation

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rev. Duncan Teague and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rev. Duncan, every day, we about how much execution matters, but we think ideas matter as well. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I was in a class at seminary, just between 2008 and 2011, and I was thinking about the places our Unitarian Universalist (UU) congregations are planted. None of them where in the Atlanta metro area and south of I-20, even though we are committed to racial justice and equality, and even though we are usually at every liberal cause with some ferocity.

Then I had the idea that it would be great if someone felt “called” to put a UU congregation in the Black or predominately Black community of Atlanta. It seemed like a simple Idea for the right person, whoever that would be. It turned out to be me and this was calling. So, now five years after we began worship and two years of planning we are worshiping and serving the West End community as Abundant LUUv Congregation.

I really had no idea this was my calling when I noticed this huge gap in where we served the area. It turned out to be something I wanted to do and enjoy doing even with all the challenges of founding a brand new spiritual community in our time and shortly before a world wide pandemic. We are small but mighty and have done good work where no UU congregation has ever been in our city.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am reminding myself to be succinct. I am, as I said a preachers’ child, his oldest child and everyone knew I was called to this but me. I thought that my sexuality was going to always be an obstacle to my ministry.. I was wrong.

I have been present and most helpful to men like myself, other lgbtqai folks looking for support, love, ministry, someone knowledgeable about HIV/HIDS and someone who understood where they came from in the Black church. I did that long before I accepted that I was called into ministry. And because I accepted who I am as a teenager in high school, I have had some maturity about being gay that many did not enjoy.

I am also doing some community ministry through the Rollins School of Public Health in Global Health faith and HIV. We are doing work in Kenya and sub-Saharan countries. I am dismayed that I am not being met by many on the continent who have the freedom to work as I have here, as an openly gay man. And to end this epidemic other African men who are queer have to be involved. I am having to sit at the tables without a lot of my peers being able to join in the work openly. As if I were in a time warp and back in the 1980s again.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Hmmm. I have gotten into trouble with this because not everyone, certainly not in my family is into “modern art’. So with much discussion I would check to see if they want to see the Braves or the Hawks and the World of Coca Cola and the Atlanta Aquarium, first. That would not be my typical list but they are here and it could be fun. I hope we can go to a play, either at the Fox for a touring Broadway show or one of our very good community theater productions, at Horizon, Actors Express, Out Front Theatre, Seven Stages. We have great restaurants right near our home, the best is Café’ Alsace in downtown Decatur, best French food with Germanic influence. The Gullah restaurant owned by two black gay men, Virgil’s in midtown to see the folks. I love Hank’s on 10th Street because I always see people I know there and the patio is huge and beautiful. We also have Louisiana Bistreaux, also right near us and spicy like real Cajun food not midwestern versions of it. I would also want to go to the King Center and the Center for Civil and Human Rights, maybe a friend of mine would give us a guided tour. If there are children involved they must go to the Fernbank in Druid Hills to see the dinosaur skeleton that wraps around the atrium of the building and the 20 something story lobby of the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta, and the High Museum, maybe the mummies at the Carlos Museum at Emory University.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Oh my, there are a lot of people involved in this effort. I want to thank Rev. Jonathan Rogers who introduced the notion of UU Church planting to me and helped me navigate our UU ministerial formation process.

My father, Rev. Russell Teague and my mother the late, Alyce Jean Teague worked tirelessly and faithfully to insure that we, my brother and I had the best foundation from which to start our adult lives as men of faith. My father retired from his ministry after 31 years of serving a congregation he helped found in Kansas City.

There was nothing in the paperwork for a beginning UU minister to imply we should pursue starting a church and yet, my husband, David Thurman of 29 years together and the friends and colleagues I have within our movement, Rev. Sherman Logan and Rev. Carol Thomas Cissel and many others have never said anything to discourage me or say I am going the wrong way. I also started with an amazing Core Team most of whom are still assisting me and the congregation.

If Jesus needed at least 12 I knew I needed more than that and they have come and helped and some have stayed.

Website: www.ALUUv.org

Facebook: Duncan Teague and Abundant LUUv

Other: I don’t have a Youtube page but I have videos of my preaching and speaking on there. I would also like them to look up a wonderful singer who joins us in worship, Renee Snead or B-Renee. She has the gift of powerful singing and I love introducing her to new people.