Full Service

Sunday April 10, 2016: Our Quests and Spiritual Journeys

Robert
Mounted Knight

Prelude Tri Martolod – Alan Stivell

Welcome The beauty of the whole – Meg Barnhouse

We gather to worship, our hearts alive with hope that here we will be truly seen, that here we will be welcomed into the garden of this community, where the simple and the elegant, the fluted and frilled, the shy and the dramatic complement one another and are treasured. May we know that here, each contributes in their way to the beauty of the whole. Come, let us worship together, all genders, sexualities, politics, clappers and non-clappers, progressive or conservative, may we root ourselves in the values of this faith: compassion and courage, transcendence, justice and transformation.

Chalice lighting Embrace The Night – Jennifer Leota Gray

Universal mystery,
Guide us away from the desire to
Shine light in all the corners.
Teach us to embrace the night,
For without the darkness,
We never see the stars.
Continue reading →

Flower Communion and Egg Hunt: Sunday March 27, 2016

LdeG

Prelude Mother Spirit Father Spirit
Norbert Čapek, sung by Waco UUC

Welcome

Today we are celebrating our Flower Communion, which was created by Dr. Norbert Čapek for the Liberal Religious Fellowship he founded in Prague, then Czechoslavakia, in 1925, and which became the largest Unitarian Church in the world. He sought a ceremony that would celebrate love and community and the interdependent web of life and love among a new and diverse congregation drawn from many backgrounds, and which would be a celebration not tied to any older religious ceremonies, which many of his congregation had rejected. Nearly a hundred years later, it is celebrated by Unitarian Universalist congregations everywhere. Continue reading →

Sunday March 20, 2016: Self Esteem

CZ

Prelude:

 

Welcome:

This morning we have treat for you. Some of our young people have worked together to prepare this morning’s service.

Come into this circle of community. Come into this sacred space. By Andrew Pakula

Come into this circle of community. Come into this sacred space.
Be not tentative. Bring your whole self!
Bring the joy that makes your heart sing.
Bring your kindness and your compassion.
Bring also your sorrow, your pain.
Bring your brokenness and your disappointments.
Spirit of love and mystery; help us to recognize the spark of the divine that resides within each of us.
May we know the joy of wholeness.
May we know the joy of being together.

Continue reading →

Sunday, February 28, 2016: Ten Irrational Ideas, Suffering, and Love

LdeG 1 Comment

Welcome

Prelude: Secure Yourself to Heaven – Indigo Girls

Chalice Lighting World Chalice Lighting for February
—Rev. Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones Australian and New Zealand Unitarian Universalist Association

We light this Chalice, a living symbol of the one Life that animates and sustains all things and all persons, the one Life in which we all live and move and have our being, and the one Life which perpetually gives of itself to itself so as to become the many.

By means of the light of truth and reason, and the warmth of fellowship and compassion, may the many come to know themselves to be not only interconnected with each other but also indivisible emanations of that one great Light which enlightens all Life and which can never be extinguished. Continue reading →

Sunday February 7, 2016: The Mind’s Old Wilderness Cut Down

Robert

Prelude: Out in the Country – Three Dog Night

Welcome: Wind, Water, Sun – Seth Carrier-Ladd

Wind that whispers through the willow trees
Sun that sustains us
Water that washes over willing earth and weathered stones
A smile shared and savored
A child’s squeal of delight as she dances in the daisies and daffodils
The quiet joy of gathered community

This, this is the spirit of life and love that we call forth now into this gathering

May this spirit infuse our hearts, fill our souls, and carry us forward like a wave on the ocean as we enter now into this sacred time and space.

Come, let us worship together.

Chalice Lighting: As One Small Flame – Celia Midgley
Global Chalice Lighting for January 2016

As one small flame
fills a whole room with light,
So may we radiate
hope, courage and good cheer
in our homes, in our worship
and in all the corners
of our world.

Continue reading →

Sunday, 31 January 2016: Grace, Gratitude, and Privilege

LdeG


Prelude: Let Her Go – Passenger

Welcome

Chalice Lighting May We Look With Gratitude Upon This Day – Michael R. Leduc

May we look with gratitude upon this day, for the beauty of the world, for the first radiance of dawn and the last smoldering glow of sunset.

Let us be thankful for physical joys, for hills to climb and hard work to do, for music that lifts our hearts in one breath, for the hand-clasp of a friend, and for the gracious loveliness of children who remind us of the wonders of life.

May we be appreciative above all for the concern and love of those around us; for the exceeding bliss of the touch of the holy which suddenly awakens our drowsy souls to the blessed awareness of the divine within us and within others.

For all of this, and for the countless other blessings present in our lives, let us be grateful. Amen.

Continue reading →

Sunday January 3, 2016: Altars, Shrines, and Every Day Practice

LdeG 1 Comment

Prelude

Chalice Lighting:

Rabbi Hillel, a Jewish contemporary of Jesus, said, “Separate not thyself from the congregation and its concerns, nor postpone thought for thy spirit until the day of thy death. Say not, ‘By and by, when I have leisure, I will care for my soul,’ lest perchance thou never find leisure.”

Song:

Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving
Ours is no caravan of despair
Love yet again come Continue reading →

Sunday December 20, 2015: Celebrate the Light

LdeG

Prelude: Ring Solstice Bells by Jethro Tull

Welcome

Chalice Lighting

We gather in the chill of winter solstice,
finding warmth from each other, nourishing
hope where reason fails.

Grateful for small miracles, we rejoice
in the wonder of light and darkness
and the daring of hope.

I’d like to invite each of each who has brought a candle to come forward and light your candle while we sing “Come, come, whoever you are” three times.

Song and Candle Lighting: Come, come, whoever you are
Wandererer, worshipper, lover of leaving
Ours is no caravan of despair
Come, yet again come Continue reading →

Sunday December 13, 2015: Politics and Religion

LdeG

Welcome

Welcome and Happy Holidays, Happy St. Nicholas Day, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Abolition Day, Bodhi Day (Tuesday), Second Sunday of Advent

Chalice Lighting
~ Kimberly Knight, Minister of Digital Community, Extravagance UCC

No, my prayers will not stop the killing.
No, my prayers will not bring back the innocent.
No, my prayers will not relax the gnarled fist of hatred.
No, my prayers will not open the greedy hearts of those who profit from death.

But, my prayers can gently break the silence of despair.
But, my prayers can channel my rage at the machine.
But, my prayers can embolden me to be the hands and feet of The Divine.
But, my prayers can encourage others of faith to awake, arise and act.

I do not pray for God to send us a miracle.
I pray for God to remind us how to be the miracle.

I am because you are and only together, with a radical belief that a paradigm shift is possible, active hope and faithful resolve to be the change we seek, can we make it stop.

Continue reading →

Sunday November 22, 2015: The ‘Miracle’ of Good Luck, New Jersey

Robert

Welcome: Welcome to this Place, by Cathy Rion Starr

Welcome to this place of peace;
May we find some moments of quiet contemplation.
Welcome to this place of celebration;
May our hearts soar with gratitude for the gift of life.

Welcome to this place of sacred love;
May we gently hold all that is broken here.

Welcome to this place of inquiry;
Here, may we be challenged to open our minds and hearts ever wider.

Come into this place of community;
May we, together, draw the circle of love and justice ever wider.

Welcome to this sacred place;
Come, let us worship, celebrate, grieve, and love together

Chalice Lighting: Legacy Chalice Lighting, by Paul Sprecher

We light this chalice to honor the memory of those who have come before us,
kindling flames of wisdom in dark times,
willing to challenge orthodoxy even at great personal risk,
giving us a legacy of freedom and a love of truth,
A legacy that warms our hearts and lights our paths.

Continue reading →