Office Information
75 The Great Road, Bedford, MA 01730
781-275-7994 • office@uubedford.org
Hours: Monday–Friday, 10:00am–2:00pm
To get in touch with a minister, call the office and they will help you get the information you need.
Rev. Jamie Hinson-Rieger, Senior Minister
Jamie Hinson-Rieger is an Indiana native. He grew up in Fort Wayne before
moving to Indianapolis as a young adult, with a short stint in Bloomington in between. He studied history, economics, and mathematics at Indiana University. He discovered Unitarian Universalism in his 30s in a not uncommon way, when he and his wife went looking for an inclusive spiritual community to support them in raising their family. They found that and much more, and he quickly fell in love with our religious tradition, eventually discerning a call to ministry. Prior to becoming a minister, he enjoyed a career in banking. He served at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Indianapolis in various capacities from 2012–2023, first as a lay leader and preacher, and then as a minister from 2020–2023. He received his Masters of Divinity from Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis in 2020. In 2023, he accepted a call to First Parish in Bedford.
Jamie is married to Susanne Hinson-Rieger, who is the Director of Family Religious Education at North Parish of North Andover, UU. They live in Bedford. They have three adult children, Jordan, Sam, and Claudia. In his spare time, Jamie enjoys reading, playing guitar, and learning Spanish. He is grateful to serve in a religious tradition that draws on diverse sources for wisdom and inspiration, with transformative love and a call to justice at the center.
Rev. Annie Gonzalez, Minister of Faith Development
ministerfaithdev@uubedford.org
Annie Gonzalez is a lifelong UU from the midwest who started at First Parish Bedford in August 2018. She has lived in 7 states and has been involved in 10 UU congregations. Previously she served as the Young Adult and Campus Ministry Associate at the Unitarian Universalist Association for five years and was affiliated as a community minister with First Parish Dorchester.
Annie lives in Malden with three housemates (two of whom are also UU ministers!) and her child Moira. She helped form the Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN) in 2018 and continues to support this community’s efforts to get people free from immigration jail in New England. Along with these endeavors you might find Annie baking pies, going for a run, playing board games or worshipping with her Christian small group called “NightChurch.”
Nathan Sellers, Director of Faith Development for Children
Nathan “Nate” Sellers grew up in Westford, MA. He pursued his studies at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, focusing on Theology and Youth Ministry, and later earned his Masters in Religion from Lancaster Theological Seminary, where he became fascinated with Unitarian Universalism, despite it being a UCC affiliated school.
Prior to his current role, Nate served as the Director of Children’s Religious Education for eight years at The First Church in Belmont. He also held the interim position of Director of Religious Exploration at First Parish in Framingham (UU) from 2015–2016, and worked as a certified Preschool teacher for four years prior, specializing in developing SEL (social emotional learning) and anti-racism curricula.
Currently residing in southern New Hampshire with his spouse, Typhany, and their two children, Nate enjoys painting, exploring trails with his kids, playing Scrabble with his wife, and both directing and producing independent films. Nate has a particular fondness for ice cream mochi.
Brad Conner, Music/Choir Director
Bradford Conner has been Music Director at First Parish since the Fall of 2005 and came to us with 23 years’ experience in directing a church choir in southeastern Massachusetts. Over the years, with his prior church, he expanded the choir and broadened its repertoire. He conducted many special musical programs and initiated and produced several successful choral festivals. Earlier in his career Brad held positions as pianist, vocalist, and choir director at a variety of church congregations, including Greek Orthodox, Jewish, and Unitarian.
His academic background includes degrees in musicology/performance (choral and instrumental conducting) as well as undergraduate degrees in German and in business administration. From 1986 to 1991 he was general manager of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra in Boson. Brad’s current day position is as an administrative assistant at Harvard Law School.
So much for the formalities. Brad also has an active performing life outside First Parish! He is a Producing Director of American Classics, a non-profit dedicated to American music, as well as partnering regularly as a pianist/vocalist with baritone Ben Sears. The “Ben and Brad” duo specializes in researching the songs and music of composers from the Great American Songbook such as Irving Berlin, Richard Rogers, and Jerome Kern, among others, and creating performances honoring special occasions based on the lives of those songwriters. Sears and Conner perform regularly in the Boston area and have been featured on WGBH, WBUR, WHRB and WERS radio.
Sandra LaBarge-Neumann, Organist
Sandra comes to First Parish via a circuitous route that started with a degree in classical voice (minor in organ) from the University of Albany, NY. After graduate voice study at New England Conservatory, she sang for 13 seasons as a member of the Handel and Haydn Society Professional Chorus. Life brought further study, resulting in a Kodály teaching certificate and an MM in conducting. She has taught classroom music, directed church music programs, and taught a private voice studio where she specialized in adolescents and their healthy vocal development.
Sandra enjoys studying organ with Heinrich Christensen, director of music for Kings Chapel, Boston. She serves as soprano section leader for Boston’s Coro Allegro, a chorus for members and friends of the LGBT communities that affirms, strengthens, and enriches the lives of its members and the broader community through the presentation of outstanding performances of classical choral music.
Perhaps her hardest and most fulfilling role has been mom to her two sons; Alex, a theatre sound designer in NYC, and Jesse, a Navy JAG officer. She is delighted to share that she has been married to her best friend, co-conspirator, and incredibly lucky husband Stan since 1973. We’ll let you know in a few years whether this will last. Sandra looks forward to being a positive contributor the First Parish community.
Janet Welby, Interim Youth Choirs Director
Janet Welby is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Music and Student Teaching Program Supervisor at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. As a scholar of diversity in music and music education, she seeks ways to bring diversity into the music classroom. Along with global music courses, she has taught in the areas of music theory, conducting, and pedagogy. As a musician, she conducts choirs, performs and teaches piano, has performed on clarinet and recorder, and has built a repertoire of musical compositions that have been performed in the Boston area. Prior to her position at UML, she was a public school elementary music teacher in the Reading and Arlington Massachusetts school systems.
Janet was the Youth Choirs Director at First Parish in Bedford from September 2008 to June 2022 and, to the delight of the First Parish community, returned to that role in September 2025.
Brenda Rybicki, Parish Administrator
parishadministrator@uubedford.org
Phone: 781-275-7994
Brenda grew up near Boston but has been a North Shore resident for the past 25 years. She was blessed to be a stay-at-home mother for almost a decade. Once her daughter was old enough, she rejoined the work force in her fields of study – Accounting & Business Administration. Brenda is also a licensed Realtor and occasionally enjoys assisting colleagues with referrals. In her free time, Brenda loves spending time with her daughter, their kitty Gnocchi, family & friends. She also enjoys baking, traveling & watching football!
Custodian: Joe Mitchell
Office Hours: Varies
Rev. John E. Gibbons, Minister Emeritus
Office Hours: During the interim period, John is not available for pastoral needs and refers all to the current ministers.
John Gibbons was Bedford’s senior minister 1990-2021, our longest-serving minister since 1800. He came to Bedford in 1990 after a decade as minister to the Unitarian Congregation in Mendon and Uxbridge, MA. Ordained in 1980, he is a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School and holds an undergraduate degree in religion and political science from Tufts University. He is married to Sue Baldauf, a social worker; and they have one son, Eric. In previous lifetimes John was a public school teacher, union organizer, counselor at a halfway house for teenage girls, apprentice to a Mexican curandera (healer-woman), and a salesman of pansies and parsley.
John is a participant in many interfaith roundtables, chaplain to the Bedford Minutemen, a founding member of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, past president of the UU Partner Church Council, and Board Chair of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. He remains available for “good trouble” and is currently the Community Minister for Good Trouble at the Arlington Street Church Unitarian Universalist in Boston.
A book of John’s Bedford sermons, titled “HUH??,” is available from Amazon.
John regards the church as the last, best, and most improbable hope for humanity.