Every year, as we begin the New Year, we hold a ritual space to name and recount the losses we’ve experienced in the past year. This year, more than ever, this ritual of “Remembrance Sunday” feels so important. In 2020, grief was a constant companion. We lost jobs, business, and loved ones, many of them to Covid-19. We lost opportunities to attend graduations and weddings, memorials and family reunions. For many of us, grief wove with grief.

In this service, we will be held by beautiful music from Ellis as well as Franco Holder and violinist Travis Waymon. Lauren Wyeth, Rev. Arif Mamdani, and Rev. Justin Schroeder will lead us in story and ritual as we touch on the realities of impermanence, remember what lives on in memory, and discover how, even in the face of grief, we might embrace life and love once again.

We hope you’ll join us this Sunday, January 10 at 10 a.m. In a year where so many have seen and experienced loss, it will be good to be together.

Follow along with the Order of Service.

Offering: First Universalist Church
(give here) or text firstuniv to 73256. You’ll receive a link to a secure form where you can enter your information. Select the “Offering Plate” fund from the dropdown menu.

Care Companions Space ~ 11 a.m.
We know that worship can take us into deep and surprising places. If you find yourself needing to talk with someone about what is stirring for you after worship, please speak with one of our care companions in a confidential zoom room after the service. This is how we care for one another.

Fellowship Hours ~ 11 a.m.
This fellowship hours will funnel through this link. Breakout room options are:

• BIPOC-Multiracial Fellowship Hour
• All-Identities Fellowship Hour

This evening, Rev. Justin will hold space for the anxiety, grief, rage, and uncertainty and other feelings we’re experiencing in response to this afternoon’s violent insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., aimed at subverting the rule of law and undermining democracy. We’ll come together to remember what anchors and holds us during trying and traumatic times. Read his full message here.

This midweek worship experience for adults and older youth is a brief time (20-30 minutes) of connection, centering, and reflection, to help us find and keep our balance.

Connect to our live streamed worship between 6:55 and 7 p.m.:
Enter the Wednesday Zoom webinar here. (webinar ID: 117-312-320). To join by phone (audio only), dial 1-312-626-6799 and enter the webinar ID.

Care Companions space (opens at about 7:30 p.m.)

What will be different in 2021? What dreams for our lives and our community have been shaped by the pandemic, the racial justice uprising, and the questions still unanswered of whether or not the United States can actually become a pluralistic, equitable, multi-racial democracy? What dreams of yours – and what collective dreams of ours – might come to life in 2021? For dreams to be born, we must choose change, be courageous and brave, and let old habits and patterns fade and die, so something new and life giving can blossom.

Join us online Sunday, Jan. 3 at 10 a.m. Worship will include a story for all ages, sharing our joys and concerns, music, and a message. Follow along with the Order of Service.

Offering: Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light
(give here) or text firstuniv to 73256. You’ll receive a link to a secure form where you can enter your information. Select the “Offering Plate” fund from the dropdown menu.

January Worship Theme: Choosing Change
More information about our January worship series
As we move into 2021 clear that we cannot return to “normal,” how will we actively “choose change,” re-imagine our lives, our purpose, the structure of our society, and the things we focus on? The answer to these questions rests in choices both small and large. Change sometimes feels impossible, but we forget that change is dynamic, alive, lurking in every corner, and is happening all around us, all the time. Change can begin when we speak the truth, when we turn toward the feeling rising in us rather than push it away, when we name what is real for us and listen to what is real for others, and when we stop and take a breath before we respond. In her book, Parable of the Sower, science fiction writer Octavia Butler, writes, “All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change.” These words invite us to consider: What does it mean to choose change? To step fully into the “God flow,” the river of change, wide awake, and let it work on us, and us on it, as it shapes our relationships, spirit, and the course of our lives? When it comes to choosing change, the poet John O’Donohue offers these questions to reflect on: “Where could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different? Where did I allow myself to receive love? What reached me today? How deep did it imprint? What did I avoid today?” This month, through message, song, prayer, and video, we will explore what it means to “choose change” and to embrace the lasting truth that is change.

On December 27th, we will gather for our last service of 2020. In a year that has seen so much, how we gather, how we mark this passing, is not as clear cut as it may have been in other less tumultuous years.

Rev. Arif Mamdani shares: Back in the spring, almost a year ago now, I asked “what is the story that we want to be able to tell about this time?” I invited us then to imagine ourselves into a future where we’d be sharing the story of this pandemic with young ones who hadn’t lived through it or were too young to recall. This was before George Floyd was murdered, before the cities across our nation and around the world rose up in a cry for justice that is still reverberating, before it became evident that Line 3 was going to be a significant fight, before our president would make numerous attempts to destroy our democracy and we would wonder (we are still wondering) if we’d have a peaceful transition of power or if we would need to be in our streets defending our democracy. And in the background of all this, the drumbeat of loss, and loss, and loss that has been a constant refrain of 2020.

It has been a year. And so, when we gather as a community on the 27th, let’s gather with this question in mind: “how shall we end this year? And what comes next?” And when we gather, let’s see how we answer it, together.

Order of Service

Offering: Every Meal for Augsburg Fairview Academy
(give here) or text firstuniv to 73256. You’ll receive a link to a secure form where you can enter your information. Select the “Offering Plate” fund from the dropdown menu.

At 9:30 p.m., we’ll offer our Christmas Eve Candlelight service, blending readings, songs, and elements typically found in our Solstice Ritual along with some of the more traditional Christmas Eve readings and songs.

Join the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service here at 9:30 p.m.

Dial in for audio only: 312-626-6799
Webinar ID: 878 4559 9414

Our Christmas Pageant is now available to watch!

Our beloved annual Christmas Pageant has been adapted for the small screen with creativity, humor, and extra layers of meaning to remind you of what matters most in this extraordinary season, as 2020 draws to a close.

Join us for our beloved annual Christmas Pageant, adapted for the small screen with creativity, humor, and extra layers of meaning to remind you of what matters most in this extraordinary season, as 2020 draws to a close.

This year’s Pageant is born of the time and talents of so many, including: our children and youth, who will co-lead the service and act out our story; Aimee K. Bryant, Randy Buikema, Franco Holder, the First Universalist Choir, Seth Anderson-Matz, Andrew Tralle, Dave and Ani Peichel, several caroling families and our virtual children’s chorus, who crafted amazing music; and a great deal of technical wizardry from dedicated church members and staff.

The Christmas Pageant will take place Sunday, Dec. 20 at 10 a.m. and will be recorded and rebroadcast on Christmas Eve at 4 p.m.

Follow along with the Order of Service.

Offering: Ministers’ Emergency Fund
(give here) or text firstuniv to 73256. You’ll receive a link to a secure form where you can enter your information. Select the “Offering Plate” fund from the dropdown menu.

Join Rev. Justin this Wednesday, Dec. 16 as we make our way through winter. This midweek worship experience for adults and older youth is a brief time (20-30 minutes) of connection, centering, and reflection.

Connect to our live streamed worship between 6:55 and 7 p.m.
Enter the Wednesday Zoom webinar here. (webinar ID: 117-312-320). To join by phone (audio only), dial 1-312-626-6799 and enter the webinar ID.

Post-service Care Companions space (opens at about 7:30 p.m.)

This Sunday, December 13, Julica Hermann de la Fuente, our Director of Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Ministries, will offer a Question Box Sermon. Do you have a burning inquiry about anti-racism and anti-oppression work, especially as it applies to our congregation? We create the message together when you provide the questions for the sermon part of our worship service. And please join us for worship on Sunday at 10 a.m.!

Follow along with the Virtual Order of Service

Offering: BLUU (give here) or text firstuniv to 73256. You’ll receive a link to a secure form where you can enter your information. Select the “Offering Plate” fund from the dropdown menu.

Care is fundamental to who we are as human beings. It is the language of our bonds to each other and how we create and maintain the social connections that make survival possible and more so, bring joy to our lives. And also, care, if you haven’t noticed, has gotten a fair bit more complicated in the last 270 days since the pandemic started for us!

As we enter this winter, of longer nights and more waiting ahead, let’s gather together for a little fortification in the practice of care. It might be a bit harder these days, but it isn’t impossible, and with a bit of prepping, perhaps we can find more ease in giving and receiving the care we crave, and need.

Join Rev. Arif Mamdani this Wednesday, Dec. 9 for a midweek worship experience for adults and older youth. This service is a brief time (20-30 minutes) of connection, centering, and reflection to help us find and keep our balance.

In his poem, “For the Interim Time,” John O’Donahue writes, “You are in this time of the interim/Where everything seems withheld,” and “The old is not old enough to have died away; the new is still too young to be born.”

These words capture right where we are: we are in a season of waiting, of anticipating the arrival of Christmas, of the Solstice, of Hannukah, of the turning of the planet, and the returning of the light. We are in a season of waiting, anticipating the vaccine for Covid-19 and the end of the pandemic, but “when?” and “how?” remain just out of reach. We are in the in-between place, the liminal space, a time of miracle and magic, fear and anxiety, wonder and grief.

In such a space, where do we cast our eyes for hope? In such a space, what is the spiritual work as we wait for the new dawn?

Follow along with the Virtual Order of Service

Offering: 50/50 Split between the Ministers’ Emergency Fund and First Universalist Church
(give here) or text firstuniv to 73256. You’ll receive a link to a secure form where you can enter your information. Select the “Offering Plate” fund from the dropdown menu.

Care Companions Space (formerly pastoral visitors) ~ 11 a.m.
We know that worship can take us into deep and surprising places. If you find yourself needing to talk with someone about what is stirring for you after worship, please speak with one of our care companions in a confidential zoom room after the service. This is how we care for one another.

First Step ~ 11 a.m.
First Step is a brief, casual orientation to Unitarian Universalism and First Universalist Church. During this 45-minute class, participants will learn about the foundations of our faith tradition, opportunities to get involved.

If you attend FirstStep this morning, please fill out the Visitor Connect form so we can follow up with you! Thank you!

Sunday Small Groups & Fellowship Hours ~ 11:15 a.m.
This Sunday, Dec. 6, small groups and fellowship hours will funnel through this link. Breakout room options are:

• Six-Week Sunday Small Groups (pre-registration required)
• BIPOC-Multiracial Fellowship Hour
• All-Identities Fellowship Hour

First Sunday Meditation Group – 11:30 a.m.
Join this congregant-led meditation group for 20 minutes of silent meditation followed by time to share and support our meditation practices. All forms of meditation welcome.