Sunday, May 22, 2016: Dissent, Heresy, and Innovation

Dissenter of Sidmouth

Prelude Galileo – Indigo Girls

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 In memory of all the flames – Amarette Callaway

In memory of all the flames that didn’t die—
in the midst of darkness,
in spite of the darkness,
we light this flame today.
“The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:5 NRSV)

Continue reading

Sunday, May 15, 2016: French Creek Wildlife Center

We have Spiritual Outings on the third Sunday during the summer. This month, we will gather at the West Virginia State Wildlife Center in French Creek at 11 a.m. for a short service, followed by a potluck picnic, conversation, and a walk around the elk, bison, wolves, and other animals. The trail and restrooms are wheelchair-accessible.

Map

Please email westforkuu@gmail.com if you would like to carpool.

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information

or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Note: Venue change. We will be meeting at Lisa and Robert’s house. Email us at westforkuu@gmail.com for directions.

May Day

International Labour Day 2016,
May Day, the first day of the month of May is celebrated all over the world with utmost importance. The day is also known as the International Worker’s Day which has a historic significance. The first day of the month of May is also a day of political protests. May Day is otherwise observed as a saint’s feast day or a day for organized labor. In many countries, it is a public holiday.

Service leader John Hall

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. Please note: This Sunday we will meet on the second floor. There are classes for children and adults 10 to 10:45 am, and a coffee gathering before the service. More about us.

Children are welcome. There is childcare and an activity for young children during the service.

The building is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible restroom.

Map

The schedule for the current adult religious education class is here.

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information

or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302

Sunday, April 24, 2016: Frontier Faith and a God of Love

Prelude: Morning Prayer by Hosea Ballou Sung by Second Ireland Sacred Harp Singers

Welcome
Hosea Ballou saidMan, being not only a religious, but also a social being, requires for the promotion of his rational happiness religious institutions, which, while they give a proper direction to devotion, at the same time make a wise, and profitable improvement of his social feelings.” And so we gather here, not only to practice our religion, but to support each other.

Chalice Lighting Drawn Together – Jennifer Leota Gray
We come together every week bound not by a creed,
Or a mutual desire to please one God or many Gods
Yet we are drawn together by a belief, that how we are in the world,
Who we are together matters.
We light this chalice, together in the knowledge
That love, not fear, can change this world Continue reading

Sunday, April 17, 2016: The Power of Touch

The Creation of Man by Michelangelo Sistine Chapel

The Power of Touch, with service leader John Hall

We would love to have you come worship with us.

Our services are Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, behind the Courthouse. There are classes for children and adults 10 to 10:45 am, and a coffee gathering before the service. More about us.

Children are welcome. There is childcare and an activity for young children during the service.

The building is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible restroom.

Map

The schedule for the current adult religious education class is here.

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information

or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302

Sunday April 10, 2016: Our Quests and Spiritual Journeys

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

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

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

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 21, 2016: The Commandments

This Sunday’s service will continue the discussion from the 10 a.m. Adult Religious Education ‘Are the Ten Commandments out of date? If so, how can we nail down some ethical convictions when, morally, “everything nailed down is coming loose”?’

You can come at 10 for the beginning of the discussion, or just to the service at 11. Bring your own commandments.

Please join us for coffee and conversation at 10:45 a.m. at the Progressive Women’s Association’s Uptown Event Center, 305 Washington Ave. in downtown Clarksburg, West Virginia.  The worship service starts at 11:00.  Our ongoing Religious Education classes begin at 10:00. The current reading for Adult RE is here.

10 Commandments

For further information, email westforkuu@gmail.com or visit our website at https://westforkuu.org/

Map