A faithful ending

First Universalist community–dear ones, all,

Reflection is the ritual end of time. Even the last ordinary minute turns rare and complicated once we dare to mark its passing. A moment becomes real when we say to one another, “This is happening. We are here. It mattered.” This letter marks such a moment with you. On Sunday, December 7, 2025, I will conclude my service as your Director of Worship Arts Ministries. That morning we will share a ritual of release and blessing in worship, to honor the ministry we have held together and to place one another back into the care of Spirit for whatever comes next.

This decision carries many layers. I feel relief. I feel disappointment. I feel grief and gratitude in the same breath. I care deeply about the way this congregation lives, loves, and shows up in the world. I also see clearly that my own life and spirit now call for a different daily rhythm than this role allows. In these last months, something simple and sharp came through: the life I imagined is already here. It moves in and out of my lungs with every breath. If I want a life that centers love, creativity, relationship, joy, and rest, my time needs to reflect those values in this season, even as everything around me keeps moving. To live that way, I need to lay some things down. This role is one of them.

My decision rises from both my own call and the realities of this institution. On an institutional level, my years with you have shown me the distance between who we say we are and how we move under pressure, especially around race, power, and change. That distance becomes even clearer when you move through this system as Black, as gay, as a leader, as non-ordained, as neurodivergent, as unusual, as “challenging.” I leave this ministry carrying both pride and wound: moments of deep beauty and connection, and also painful racial experiences at our front doors and within our shared life. These truths live alongside the love and growth we have shared. They ask this community to stay awake. Across Unitarian Universalism, religious professionals of color and other marginalized leaders have been leaving at a noticeable rate. My departure becomes one more point in that pattern. I pray we allow this reality to clarify our reflections and deepen our sense of accountability to its truth, to work for a sharp turn for good in the very next chapters.

I also feel deep gratitude for what we have created together. When we began our journey together, we were still emerging from pandemic isolation, unsure how to sing, how to breathe, how to be in the same room again. Now you fill the sanctuary and beyond with confidence, tenderness, and tenacious hope. We have learned to pray together with common words and deep commitment to its realization: You are not alone. We are holding it together. We have grown into a more participatory worshipping community. Worship Associates have stepped forward in courage and craft. Singers and players have taken risks and offered gifts across genres and generations. We’ve built a living bridge to those who worship from home. Children, youth, and elders have led and lifted rituals and reflections with real-world honesty. Together we have tended Flower Communions with a sharper edge of resistance, Sex-Ed Sundays centered on trans and queer liberation, Question Box Sundays on presence and care, grief rituals, youth-led pilgrimages, and services that carried tenderness and fire.

Between now and December 7, my focus will be on a faithful ending: transferring knowledge, smoothing what transitions I can, and creating room for goodbyes that feel real rather than rushed. The formal role ends. The love I feel for many of you continues. My prayers for this community’s courage, honesty, and liberation remain steady. I will keep watching—from whatever distance—with hope that you keep becoming a people who widen the circle with trust, who center those at the edges of power, and who trust that Spirit moves in ways that interrupt comfort for the sake of deeper life. Still now, and always, I share my prayer for us all: that you, dear one, never need journey alone, that we hold each heart without fail and fully, together.

Dr. Glen Thomas Rideout 

Director of Worship Arts Ministries
First Universalist Church of Minneapolis