First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston Podcast

Sermon from October 20, 2024 The congregation voted to call the Rev. Dr. Colin Bossen as its eighth settled minister. Before the vote, he shared something of his vision for the future. He asks the question, what kind of community do we want to be in 2050?

As part of our All Soul's service, Rev. Scott offered a beautiful homily honoring the lives of our beloved departed. We honored their legacies and the light they brought into our lives, leaving us with the peace they carried.

Is society on the cusp of a "Great Turning," as Joanna Macy has claimed? How do we prepare ourselves for a great moral awakening and spiritual revolution? What is the nature of revolution? Since it is a political season, we'll focus on this question from a political perspective and take adrienne maree brown as our guide.

Vidas Robadas is a state-wide installation campaign, where congregations, universities, and any other interested locations display t-shirts that name or represent victims from their community whose lives where stolen by gun violence. This project seeks to connect the various silos of advocacy and violence prevention, and to unite communities of faith with other advocates to create positive change....

The Unitarian Universalist Association organized a nationwide Climate Revival. This special service is devoted to helping us picture the world we want to bring into being by the year 2050.

We begin our series "Future Visions, Future Selves" with a look to the past. We ask a simple question: How do our understandings of the past shape our dreams for the future?

Religion has long helped people envision the future. The 2024-2025 program year will be one in which the congregation is oriented both its future and the futures of its members. Over the course of the year there will be a pivotal national election, the adoption of a congregational strategic plan, and a vote to elect a settled minister. Throughout the series questions about how the climate crisis,...

Summer often sees an influx of visitors and people seeking a new faith community. Rev. Scott again takes this opportunity near the beginning of the new church year to give a quick review of what Unitarian Universalism is - for their benefit and as a refresher to others. Come and hear why he thinks this faith is more important than ever. 

We observed Labor Day with a service devoted to celebrating the accomplishments of the labor movement. We explore why and how solidarity can be a spiritual practice. Also included are two testimonials from local labor organizers.

"There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried," wrote the martyred Catholic Bishop Oscar Romero. August 11th to 14th Rev. Dr. Bossen and members of our congregation traveled to Brownsville to offer witness to the ongoing crisis at the border. In this service, Rev. Dr. Bossen and others reflect upon their experiences and why solidarity with migrants and refugees is a rel...

First Unitarian Universalist, like many other congregations in our tradition, kicks off the new congregational year with an Ingathering service. Members and friends reunite, re-covenant, and prepare for the new church year.

The dictionary lists twenty definitions of power, and that's just as a noun. Rev. Scott's power, definition number seventeen, "a particular form of mechanical or physical energy," was restored after a week following the environmental power of Beryl. That was the afternoon before he flew out to the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) training, where developing community power was the topic. Alice Wal...

Dr. Bossen regularly uses mass transit. In this sermon he reflects on how taking it can be a form of spiritual practice and what he has learned over the years from engaging in this kind of spirituality.

Rev. Dan shares the need for people of different backgrounds to be able to find unity and common goals.

Historically, Universalists, believing humans are good but flawed, railed against the Calvinists, who asserted humans are inherently sinful and depraved. Dr. King told us, "That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good." Perhaps it might be more useful to focus on the choices we have. 

Our guest minister Rob Hardies recently returned from a pilgrimage to a place that some ancient peoples believed was the end of the world. Rob will reflect on what it means for each of us to confront the end of the world as we know it, and offer lessons for how we might journey with grace and faith toward the many endings (and new beginnings!) of our lives.   The Rev. Dr. Robert M. Hardies is Lead...

Gene Robinson, the first openly gay priest to be consecrated a bishop in a major Christian denomination, once declared, "I think people often come to the synagogue, mosque, the church looking for God, and what we give them is religion." Many Millennials and many LGBTQ folks identify as Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR). During Pride Month, Rev. Scott asks, "How do we transform the perception of R...

Rev. Teague is grateful to be back at UU Houston. This time he is pondering that we are fairly consistently celebrating the PRIDE Month events and participating in parades as radical welcoming religious communities of Unitarian Universalists. We have the appropriate rainbow attire and are led in these events by our own LGBTQQIA+ members and friends. We have hosted same sex marriages for many years...

The final installment of "Lives of the Spirit" found us focusing on the late Unitarian Universalist theologian Forrest Church. He taught that the meaning of life comes from knowing that we will die. Almost fifteen years after his death, we will explore what he still has to teach us.

Flower Communion Join us for a celebration of Earth's beauty and the power of community! We will fill our sanctuary full of brilliant colors for our annual flower communion.    

Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen wrote ". . . as Unitarian Universalists, our journey is to transform the big and the small, to transform ourselves, and to transform the world." How might we transform the world by transforming our observance of holidays?

The Hindu monk and philosopher Swami Vivekananda was a key figure in introducing yoga to the United States. A close friend of the Unitarian and Universalist movements of the early twentieth centuries, he helped move our tradition more fully towards religious pluralism. In this month's installment of "Lives of the Spirit" we consider how he might continue to inspire us.

An exploration of what it means to be embodied beings.  Guest Preacher Rev. Tania Márquez is an ordained UU community minister currently serving as a hospital chaplain in San Diego, CA. Rev. Marquez is also a Spiritual Director with a passion for poetry, beauty, art, and community.  Her ministry is informed by her Mexican, immigrant, and fronteriza experience as well as for a passion towards colle...

As part of our Annual Music Service, Rev. Dan King spoke about how embracing transformation is important in times of growth and change. 

We will celebrated May Day with a service devoted to April's subject for "Lives of the Spirit," the spiritual activist Grace Lee Boggs. A seminal figure in the urban agriculture movement, a lifelong community organizer, and a philosopher, she believed that social transformation did not come from one big revolution. Instead, it would arrive through many small ones. How might her revolutionary thoug...