Rev. Brigitta Vieyra, MDiv, MA
Education and Work Prior to Ministry:
Brigitta has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology, Anthropology and Sociology from Westminster College and received a MA in Higher Education and Student Affairs from New York University in 2013. She has over ten years of experience in higher education and regulatory affairs, including as Director of Compliance and Ethics.
Path to the Ministry / Ministry Experience
Brigitta’s inspiration for considering ministry began at the Boulder Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Lafayette, Colorado, where she served as a lay leader. Brigitta completed a chaplaincy internship at AdventHealth Shawnee Mission hospital and was a faith-organizing intern for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) where she led community safety training and contributed to The Word Is Resistance podcast.
She has additional trainings and certifications in many topics, including: psychological first aid, suicide prevention, cultural competency, chaplaincy and the environment, spiritual care for people with disabilities, bystander intervention, decentering whiteness and UU Youth. She has particular expertise in community safety activities, congregational safety, and de-escalation.
After graduating with a Masters in Divinity from the Iliff School of Theology in May 2023, Brigitta was the ministerial intern for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Phoenix. She then continued work there as a spiritual wellness chaplain.
Brigitta’s time at UU Phoenix was quite eventful. There were 13 funerals in 12 months, some that were incredibly tragic. The church was a target of alt-right harassment and threats. Their congregation was a hub for collection of petitions to protect and expand abortion access, which often brought pro-life protestors to their sidewalk – Brigitta’s role was to maintain safety and prevent harassment between protestors and congregants. One of her methods was to ask the protestors open-ended questions to redirect attention away from conflict towards compassionate, non-judgmental listening.
A story from a reference about Brigitta’s first day at UU Phoenix: The lead minister had been asked to attend a school board meeting where they would be discussing no longer working with a private teaching school that required an anti-LGBTQ commitment from its student teachers. The lead minister sent Brigitta. A bunch of Proud Boys were there to protest. The reference said “I was immediately impressed with how unflappable Brigitta was… She had prepared a 3 minute speech and showed up in her collar” to talk about how important it is that LGBTQ children feel safe in our schools. Brigitta continued to show up to support them and chaperoned GLSEN’s Pride Prom. That same reference says that she told “a beautiful [Time for All Ages] story about, instead of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, embracing a 5th option: Flock. . . getting grounded to co-regulate and support each other.” Watch it here.
Ministry Style
A colleague says “Brigitta has a beautiful worship presence. When she gets to the pulpit, people’s heart rates slow down and you know that you are ready for a grounding, spiritual process. … Brigitta has infused spirit and heart and healing into [our services]. From her improvised prayers that weave in the joys and sorrows just spoken to her somatic body practices to [using] bells and singing bowls to create sacred space… she has taught us how to be more spirit-led.” See a sample sermon here.
“Brigitta has a really sharp theological mind, observing how people are making meaning in their experiences and contexts and pulling together threads of stories to … what is happening in the broader world.”
More Wonderful Things People Told Us
- “Brigitta is great at analyzing not just WHAT we do, but WHY we do it and linking our congregational administration work to our values… grounding people in understanding that their work is more sacred than they thought, giving deeper meaning to the work of community building.”
- “She can reflect joys and sorrows back to us as if they were poetry.”
- “Works well with kids, people of all ages.” “Considers age-appropriate psychological and emotional expression to meet the spiritual needs of community members.”
- “She was at every pride event, every immigrant rights event. Any ministerial work she had to do, she dove in like it was a mosh pit.”
- “She is deeply rooted in anti-racism and multicultural pastoral care. When racism or classism or antisemitism is at play, she has an eye for calling it out.”
- “She is an outstanding systems thinker. She had a depth of experience before she went into ministry. … She showed up as a well formed ministerial personality..”
- “After every conversation with Brigitta, you walk away feeling known, and lifted, and loved. … Brigitta has an uncanny ability to mirror back to other people who they are at their core.”