In her song, “We Are A Gentle Angry People,” Holly Near sings, “…we are singing for our lives.” I’ve always enjoyed this song (it’s in our Hymnal, too, #170), but there’s something that is resonating anew with me now, as we enter this hard, dark, pandemic filled winter season. Singing is saving my life right now. From the songs we sing in online worship, to the dinner table grace I sing with my family, to the songs I listen to and sing along with on Pandora and Spotify, I find that I am “singing for my life.” This is not an exaggeration.

Join Rev. Justin this Wednesday as we explore the power of song and the power of using our voice (through singing and humming) as a way to make it through a difficult time. 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 during this time of pandemic and physical distancing.

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.)

Historically, UU ministers were instrumental in creating this U.S. holiday and the “Pilgrims and the Indians” pageant tradition that roots the holiday in an historically inaccurate and harmful colonial narrative. Many UU congregations in New England can trace their lineage directly back to early settler congregations that had a role in the genocide of Native communities. As a religious tradition, we cannot decide who we will be without reckoning with the truth of who some of our ancestors were.

This year, let us be grateful in a genuine manner. Let our gratitude flow from our deep, ongoing commitment to justice and equity. Let our gratitude grow from the opportunities we have to be together authentically—whether virtually or in person. Please join me as we reimagine this day and gather in community to honor Indigenous ancestors, experiences and traditions. May it be a time to reflect and find meaning in how our shared values connect us. ” – UUA President, Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray.

Join us Sunday, Nov. 29 at 10 a.m. for a special Thanksgiving worship.

NEW! Nov. 29, 2020 Virtual Order of Service

Offering: Create Climate Justice – Indigenous Solidarity Fund with the UU Ministry for Earth
(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.

Sunday Care Companions Space ~ 11 a.m.
If you find yourself needing to talk with someone about what is stirring for you on a Sunday morning, please speak with one of our care companions in this confidential zoom room.

*Post-Worship Fellowship Hour for BIPOC and Multiracial folks
A social space for those who identify as black, indigenous, people of color, and multiracial to connect.
*BIPOC/Multiracial Fellowship Hour has moved permanently to a breakout room in the Sunday Small Groups and Fellowship Hours zoom room linked below. 

Sunday Small Groups & Fellowship Hours – Just following the service, ~ 11:15 a.m.
This Sunday, Nov. 29, small groups and fellowship hours will funnel through this link. We’ll begin the time with a short prayer and check in, then go into smaller breakout rooms. Breakout room options are:

• Drop-In conversation about the worship service facilitated by Julica Hermann de la Fuente
• Six-Week Sunday Small Groups (pre-registration required)
• BIPOC-Multiracial Fellowship Hour
• All-Identities Fellowship Hour

Join Rev. Justin Schroeder for a time of reflection, prayer, and connection as we hold both the deep grief and gratitude of this season. As our Thanksgiving plans, traditions, travel, and hopes have been changed, updated, amended, and cancelled, together, we will name the grief and gratitude that fill our lives during this Thanksgiving week.

Join us this Wednesday, Nov. 25 at 7:00 p.m. 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.

Launch the Wednesday Worship Zoom here – 7:00 p.m.
webinar ID: 117-312-320

To join by phone (audio only), dial 1-312-626-6799 and enter the webinar ID.

Care Companions Space (formerly Pastoral Visitors) ~ 7:30 p.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.

These last many weeks, I’ve been returning to the notion of the fractal nature of reality that adrienne maree brown writes about in Emergent Strategy. As she writes: “Dandelions contain an entire community in each spore that gets blown on children’s breath.” Here in the Twin Cities, the dandelions are long gone. Winter is coming. COVID rates are on the rise. Hospitals and those who staff them are at the very edge. This may well be a very hard season. And yet, I wonder in this emerging winter, what spores are we crafting that will reseed the Earth as it awakens in spring? How might we, individually and collectively share the burdens, lighten our load, and move, even just a little, toward the world we dream of? Let’s gather up on Sunday- Breathe together and share word and song as we turn our hearts toward the season ahead, grab each other’s (digital, imaginary) hands, and make our way through.

Join us online Sunday, Nov. 22 at 10 a.m. for a story for all ages, sharing our joys and concerns, special music, and a sermon from Rev. Arif Mamdani.

Click to enter the Worship Webinar 10 a.m.

Webinar ID: 861 805 984
Dial-in on a phone for audio-only: 312-626-6799

NEW! Follow along with the Virtual Order of Service, which includes a Reflection and Listening Guide to help deepen your experience with the worship service.

Offering: Alafia Foundation
(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.

Post-Worship Fellowship Hour for BIPOC and Multiracial folks ~ 11 a.m.
A social space for those who identify as black, indigenous, people of color, and multiracial to connect.

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.

Sunday Small Groups & Open Fellowship Hour  – 11:15 a.m.
Gather in zoom breakout rooms to reflect on content related to the worship service using the guide below. This link will take you to a main zoom room where you’ll be invited to join a smaller breakout room.

Recently, the First Universalist Pastoral Visitors had a name change. They are now Care Companions. At First U, we are all care companions with one another. This week, let’s explore what it means to care for one another. What are the constructs that help us understand the essential nature of human caring? How has care changed over time? How can you be a better care provider in your family, among your friends, with fellow congregants? We care because we must!

Join First Universalist ministers on Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. 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.

Launch the Wednesday Worship Zoom here
(webinar ID: 117-312-320) between 6:55 and 7 p.m. and we’ll get started right at 7 p.m.

To join by phone (audio only), dial 1-312-626-6799 and enter the webinar ID.

Join the Care Companion space following the service here.

The costs of the global pandemic have been high: lives and jobs lost; family gatherings, celebrations, and memorial services postponed, or cancelled; and physical contact limited with friends and loved ones. At the same time, for some of us, the lockdowns and different pace of life have given us a glimpse of what else might be possible. For a time, the smoggy sky over major world cities cleared. Carbon emissions dropped. Many of us became more clear what really mattered and why. How might these new “pandemic insights” shape our holiday season this year? What would it mean to put the earth first this year? To prioritize what really matters? Though the votes have been counted, and a new president elected, every day, we get to vote with our dollars, our actions, and our relationships. Everyday, we can cast a vote for a more just and fair world, or a vote for the status quo. This Sunday, we’ll explore these questions as we launch our annual Holiday Giving Project, in support of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism.

Please join us online Sunday, November 15 at 10 a.m. Worship will include a story for all ages, sharing our joys and concerns, special music, and a message.

Offering: Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (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.

As we continue to decompress from last week’s long electoral vigil, let us pick up the thread that Rev. Justin introduced in Sunday worship about what our bodies can tell us. Please join us for an embodied meditation, led by Dr. Glen Thomas Rideout in last week’s UUA vigil, along with our traditional time of prayer and connection. Come be nourished, connect to your body, and find strength for our ongoing challenges. It will be good to be together. Join Julica Hermann de la Fuente this Wednesday, Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. for Wednesday Worship. This service is a brief time (20-30 minutes) of connection, centering, and reflection to help us find and keep our balance.

To participate, launch the Wednesday Worship Zoom here (webinar ID: 117-312-320) between 6:55 and 7 p.m. and we’ll get started right at 7 p.m.

To join by phone (audio only), dial 1-312-626-6799 and enter the webinar ID.

Care Companions (formerly Pastoral Visitors) Space – available after the service at 7:30 p.m.

The election is over. The votes counted and still being counted. What now? What next? What guides, holds, and shapes us in these coming months? How might we live with, wrestle, and be challenged by these words of the great American poet, Langston Hughes, who wrote,

“Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!”

Join us for worship this Sunday, Nov. 8 at 10 a.m. Worship will include a story for all ages, sharing our joys and concerns, special music, and a message.

Offering: Sanctuary and Resistance 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.

Post-Worship Coffee Hour for all identities ~ 11 a.m.
All are invited to fill up on your favorite morning beverage and connect with fellow congregants in a casual, social environment. Topics vary from light-hearted to serious- from gardening to movies to living in the era of coronavirus.

Post-Worship Coffee Hour for BIPOC and Multiracial folks ~ 11 a.m.
A social space for those who identify as black, indigenous, people of color, and multiracial to connect.

Sunday Pastoral Visitors 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 on a Sunday morning, please speak with one of our pastoral visitors in a confidential zoom room after the service. This is how we care for one another.

During election week at First Universalist, we are committed to providing spiritual grounding and spiritual resources for our faith community, so that we can meet the moment with clarity and compassion.

On Wednesday, Nov. 4, our ministers will be available in a drop-in Zoom room between 11:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. for anyone needing to connect and talk. Our usual Wednesday Evening Worship service will run 7-7:45 p.m. in meeting format so that all who attend have the option to have video on and see each other.

Drop-In Zoom Room – 11:30 a.m.–7 p.m. with First Universalist ministers

Wednesday Evening Worship – 7 p.m. with Rev. Justin Schroeder

(please note: this is a special zoom room for this week only – held in meeting format – where you’ll be able to see other participants who choose to have their video on, and have the option to turn on your own video.)

On November 3, the United States will hold our 59th national presidential election day–and in the midst of pandemic, climate catastrophe, rising authoritarianism, and widespread uprising, this is perhaps the most significant election in our country’s history. In the context of extreme polarization and threats to so many communities, what trust can we have in the traditional systems and structures of democracy in the United States? And if that trust has been eroded–or never existed–in what can we place our trust, and our hope? Join Rev. Ashley Horan this Sunday, Nov. 1 at 10 a.m. for an exploration of our current moment, and what our faith offers and compels us to do in these times.

Click to enter the Worship Webinar– 10 a.m.
Webinar ID: 861 805 984
Dial-in on a phone for audio-only: 312-626-6799

Or watch the live stream on YouTube.

Offering Recipient: Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (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.

Post-Worship Fellowship Room for All Identities~ 11 a.m.
We’re trying some new things in the post-worship social space! Connect with fellow congregants in the Fellowship Hall- a lightly structured environment where we’ll discuss and reflect on what we heard in the worship service.

Post-Worship Fellowship for BIPOC and Multiracial folks ~ 11 a.m.
A social space for those who identify as black, indigenous, people of color, and multiracial to connect.

Pastoral Visitors/Spiritual Care 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 on a Sunday morning, please speak with one of our pastoral visitors in a confidential breakout room after the service. This is how we care for one another.

FirstStep ~ 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!

UU The Vote ~11 a.m.
Our UU faith guides us to stand together to ensure that all communities have their voices heard. Find actions to take and organizations to support leading up to the election.