NORWAY – The Unitarian Universalist Churches of Norway and West Paris have announced they have called the Rev. Richard Beal as their new minister.

Beal, a native of Maine and graduate of Harvard Divinity School, and his partner, Joan, have worked together in ministry for 25 years. Joan is a teacher and their son, Barney Eben Beal, works in software near Boston. Barney is a Bates graduate and worked for several months as a reporter for the Advertiser Democrat in Norway some 10 years ago.

Beal has served churches in Maine, Massachusetts, Kentucky and New Zealand. He will move to the Oxford Hills in August. Mrs. Beal will finish her contract as a teacher in Louisville, Kty., and will join him next year.

Beal is a founder, former president and long-term board member of the UU Partner Church Council, which matches North American churches with Unitarian and Universalist churches around the world.

He has traveled in East Central Europe. He has a deep interest in history and said he is at being called to the pulpit of the oldest continuously functioning Universalist church in Maine. Beal said he looks forward to helping to revitalize both churches and helping continue their tradition of community service.

A birthright Universalist and a liberal Christian in his theology, Beal focuses his preaching on the importance of a spiritual and philosophical basis for meeting the challenging changes in the world and retaining a personal sense of meaning and being centered. He intends to be something of an evangelist for a larger, deeper, more inclusive and generous faith.

Beal, the son of a Universalist minister, was born in Brunswick and has lived in many areas of the state. He attended Thornton Academy in Saco, Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt., and Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.

Mrs. is a graduate of Wellesley and Leslie colleges, majoring in psychology and special education. They met while working with emotionally disturbed and delinquent children and youth in New Hampshire. They then helped found and run the Homestead Project near Ellsworth.

Since graduate school they have been involved in ministering to Unitarian Universalist churches in Melrose, Northboro and Westboro Mass., Dexter, Brunswick and Sangerville, Louisville, Kty., Troy, Mich., and Auckland, New Zealand.

Beal enjoys travel and has a few other hobbies and activities.