| Rev. Ricky Hoyt was raised in a Methodist church in Santa Monica, California. He remembers as a young boy the pleasure of serving as an acolyte and especially enjoying the choir and organ in the large church his family attended. He even dreamed for a time, of becoming a minister. But at age 13, Ricky learned that much of what he intuitively felt to be true spiritually was incompatible with the Christian theology taught in his confirmation class. |
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| Could Jesus really have been God incarnate? Was it really not Jesus’ teachings but his death on the cross that mattered for our spiritual salvation? Could a loving God really punish people in an eternal Hell? What about all the other religions in the world, and the wonderful wisdom available from so many spiritual leaders, was none of that worth studying alongside the Bible? |
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| And he learned, as he discovered his emerging sexuality as a gay man, that most churches would be closed to him. For the rest of his teen age years until his late 20s Ricky had no connection with organized religion. |
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| He studied music composition in college, first at UCLA, and then at California Institute of the Arts where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1985. |
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| When AIDS emerged as a defining experience for the gay community in the mid-80s, Ricky began doing volunteer work with the AIDS Project Los Angeles. This led to a staff position and eventually leadership in the organization as a Board Member and Director of Human Resources. |
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| His return to religion came in 1991 when he was introduced to the Unitarian Universalist faith. In Unitarian Universalism he found a religious community grounded in individual experience, where members were encouraged to develop their own spiritual paths, and who included social justice activism as an essential component of faith. Ricky quickly found a home in the Unitarian Universalist church of Santa Monica. It was the ministers there who encouraged his own pursuit of the ministry. |
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| The Claremont School of Theology awarded Ricky the Masters of Divinity degree in 1998. While in seminary he worked as a chaplain at the UCLA Medical Center. He was ordained in 1998 by the congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills, where he served as minister until 2003. Beginning in 2001 he also began serving a newly emerging congregation, just north of Los Angeles, which he continues to serve. |
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| Rev. Ricky lives with his husband, Peleg Top, in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. |
