sermon summaries

Our UUFC mission statement begins with “We gather as an inclusive religious community…” And we do our best to be welcoming to all who come. And, we still have lots to learn about what broad inclusion really means, and needs, and looks like. We’re at the beginning of a new collaboration with ARC of Benton County, and look forward to learning more today from ARC staff member Misha Marie and Board President John Gottchall, about the work of ARC, serving and supporting people with Developmental Disabilities.

Please join us. The service will be indoors today. Following the Sunday Service, at 2 PM, please join in the Celebration of Life for Louise Ferrell. Those wishing to join online may do so by using the regular Sunday Service link.

Lughnasadh, or Lammas, is the point on the Wheel of the Year which celebrates the beginning of harvest season — a time of ripening fruits and fields, a time of abundance, a time to give thanks. Join us to once again be reminded of the seasons and gifts of the earth here in the Willamette Valley. For all gardeners – bring some of your harvest to share, if you like — zuchinni, basil, first apples? If you’re not a gardener, blackberry season has begun – bring some to share!

What does PEACE mean to you? no war? Good relations with your neighbors? a life with enough for everyone? Join us as several Fellowship members, including Bill Glassmire, Molly Curry and Joyce Federiuk, share their understandings of peace and why we need to give more attention to it. Rev. Monica Jacobson Tennessen joins us to host the service.

Join us outside on the Fellowship back lawn this Sunday. 

Stay cool, Everyone!

It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said “… it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping, we are becoming.” This brings up the question of our “liturgical year”: What are the holidays / holy days we observe, or celebrate, and why? If we could choose, what would be the most important days or events or observances to include in our congregational life, as a way of helping to orient us to what is most important? Maybe we can choose! This is worth some discussion.

“In the places and times of my growing up, definitions of and attitudes toward gender and sexuality were highly circumscribed, biased, narrow-minded, and I realized later, oppressive. My introduction to broader views and my evolving understandings of gender, sexuality and myself have been deeply intertwined with my life in the Fellowship and within Unitarian Universalism. This is one of the reasons that I appreciate Pride Month, which at the very least reminds me to keep learning.”

With Rev. Jill McAllister

The longest day of the year is almost here. We think of it as the advent of summer — the season of sun and heat and growth. As summers here lengthen and intensify, as we feel so many changes on the earth, how shall we consider the sun – both the spark of life and the fire of destruction?

We may live with different ideas of what is real, what is true, and what is important, yet as human beings, with each other and all other living things, the fact is we live in a shared world.  As our country and other parts of our lives feel increasingly fragmented, how do our values call us back to the facts of connectedness?