Rev. Lillie Mae Henley is a native Texan. She grew up in Nederland, the daughter of a homemaker and a refinery worker, Maragueritte and Clarence  Henley.  She, like many southern women of her time, believed an MRS degree was more important than a college degree, so half-way through her undergraduate work at Lamar Universisty, she married a Texas Aggie, and they had a son Kyle. She was divorced in 1977, and right away, she knew she needed to complete her education. She graduated from Lamar University with honors in 1981 with a BS in speech communication with honors.        
    Her professional career began with a marketing support and systems support position with IBM. She worked in the computer industry for ten years, then decided she wanted to teach. Her post-baccalaureate work was in pedagogy, English, and journalism. She taught one year and at the end of that year she found herself caring for her dying mother. She decided not to return to the classroom, and instead continued to care for her mother. When her mother died, "a voice from within" reminded her that the call she felt to ministry as a young person in the Baptist church was still calling. This time, the call was to the UU ministry.
    The next fall, Rev. Henley began her studies at Meadville Lombard Theological School where she graduated with a Master of Divnity in 1998.   Her emphasis was in world religions, preaching, and feminist theology. She studied the historical Jesus at the Lutheran Theological School with professors of the "Jesus Seminar." She studied an early Christian history course of Rosemary Radford Ruether. 
    She was most recently the settled minister at Universalist National Memorial Church, Washington, D.C., from 2006 until this year. The Church was built in 1928-30 to serve as the "national" church of the Universalist Church of America. It was in Washington, in the Church where Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, attended that Rev. Henley began to appreciate and understand Universalism and what a post-modern Universalism could mean for our free, religious tradition of the twenty-first century. 
    Prior to her last settlement, Rev. Lillie served the Westside Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, from 2001 through 2004.
    She was an interim ministeer for the First Unitarian Church of Toledo, Ohio, 1999 to 2001, and an interim for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1998 through 1999.
    She has also served as a hospital chaplain and has volunteered at various hospitals during her parish ministries.
    Throughout her adult life, Rev. Henley has been involved in two primary social justice issues: addressing the needs of the hungry and the homeless. She has worked with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless; Westaid, a crisis ministry for the hundgry on the west side of Fort Worth; and Crisis Control Ministry of Winston-Salem, as well as other food pantries.
    Other concerns for her are "justice for children" and the many forms that may take, and women's rights.
   Rev. Henley grew up a Baptist at the Fellowship Baptist Church, in Nederland. Her mother was a Baptist, her father an atheist. Rev. Lillie was very involved with her church and by the time she was twelve believed she was called to the ministry. That is, called as a missionary, because women were not allowed to be ministers in the church, but were encouraged to travel abroad to share the "good news!"
    The summer after she graduated from high school, she left her Baptist church, because she felt it was too theologically exclusive.