Unitarian Universalist Ministry

Centered in Love, Committed to Justice, Called by Story

About Me:

Rev. Monica Clark-Robinson is excited to be the new settled minister at the First Unitarian Church of Wilmington, Delaware. She has been a Unitarian Universalist for more than thirty years. Her own theology is rooted in interdependence—the understanding that none of us exists alone, and that our flourishing is bound up with the flourishing of other people, other creatures, and the living world. That understanding shapes the way Monica approaches ministry. She believes churches can be places where we learn to pay attention: to one another, to the world around us, to voices that have been pushed to the margins, and to the possibilities that emerge when people gather with courage and imagination. Her ministry is particularly shaped by commitments to LGBTQ+ justice, racial justice, climate justice, animal liberation, and the work of creating communities where people of every age can belong and contribute.

Monica graduated from Meadville Lombard Theological Seminary in May of 2026, where she received the UUA Presidential Scholarship. She was welcomed into preliminary fellowship with the UUA in December 2025 and was ordained in May 2026. Previously, Monica was the intern minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbia, MO and at the Church of the River in Memphis.

A lifelong storyteller, teacher, and community-builder, Monica came to ministry after a career that included work as a children’s book author, actor, and theatre and writing professor. She received an MFA in Acting from Michigan State University and an MFA in Writing from Hamline University. She’s the author of several children’s books, including “Let the Children March,” illustrated by Frank Morrison, “Standing On Her Shoulders,” illustrated by Laura Freeman, and “Teaching for Change: Septima Clark’s Legacy of Literacy and Liberation,” co-written with Yvonne Clark-Rhines, Septima Clark’s granddaughter. Monica’s books have won multiple awards, including an International Literacy Association Debut award and a Coretta Scott King Honor award for illustration.

As an activist, Monica has partnered with LGBTQ organizations, interfaith peace and justice groups, and two different prison justice organizations, where she was a teacher and mentor to incarcerated writers. For fun and leisure, she loves to cook vegan meals, write poetry, read, cook, watch episodes of The Walking Dead, sing, act, work on her stand-up comedy set, and go thrifting. Monica currently lives in the Philly/Wilmington area but recently lived for 15 years in a yurt in the woods of Arkansas with her wife and daughters. In her spare time, Monica is currently pursuing an honorary doctorate in Kitty Snuggles.

Sample Sermons:

“Gleanings From Our Past: Returning to What Has Always Saved Us”