Unfolding Faith: Sermons from Foothills Unitarian

  This Sunday, guest minister Reverend Karen G. Johnston, Senior Minister at First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington, asked: How do we connect with the interdependent nature of the universe?  Unitarian Universalism in the 21st century (at least so far) guides us to name Interdependence as one of our core values. That's cool - But it's also kinda weird because Interdependence is not just...

Masculinity. It's not a monolith, but a plurality of ideologies, cultural practices, and lived experiences. How do we talk about all these masculine-ities not from a place of judgement, but with wonder? How do we both expand our preconceived notions and get really particular about the ways in which ideas about masculinity are present in our lives? Join Rev. Christopher Watkins Lamb and Army Vetera...

This week, we did something a little different. We felt that there were two different messages that our congregation needed to hear this past Sunday. So this week we are releasing two messages for you. This one, is from our 11am service.   What if the most defiant thing we can do right now is to be unmistakably, joyfully alive? This Sunday, we find out! This service is a celebration that hands the...

This week, we did something a little different. We felt that there were two different messages that our congregation needed to hear this week. So this week we are releasing two messages for you. This one, the first, is from our 9am service. In this service we connect the dots and refuse to treat anyone's fight for bodily autonomy as a separate fight. We'll learn how to be part of a broad coalition...

When I was nine, my mother drove me two and a half hours to enter a beauty pageant. Spoiler alert: I lost. But the "why did we ever think that was a good idea?" of that story still haunts us both. We got caught up in stories about what "girls" were supposed to like, and do, to make sense in this world — stories that even then had very little to do with who I actually was. And for a minute, it felt...

Your whole life somebody has been telling you your gender story is simple. A parent. A voice inside your own head. But something inside you probably always knew better. And right now that simple story isn't just incomplete - it's being used as a weapon against real people in real families.  Rev. Sean invites us to sit with our own gender stories and find out what they're actually made of. Because...

When your everything runs out, you don't have to hold it alone. In our final message of this series, we close with the truth that has quietly held the past three Sundays together: that none of us is meant to carry this life by ourselves. We explore the slow, unglamorous work of keeping yourself steady so you can show up for others, and why our deepest need to be held is the very thing that weaves...

There is more to us than we know. These hidden selves live in the part of our psyche known as Shadow. In a time of deep struggle, Shadow may offer hidden treasure. In this sermon, Rev. Christopher asks, What if we respond to our pain and struggle not by trying to fix it, but by growing bigger and stranger? What if finding the pleasure our Shadow selves already enjoy unleashes something deeply need...

One Day, One Hour, One Breath at a Time Most of us have said it. "I'm just taking it one day at a time." But there's a version of that sentence you say casually, and a version you say when you actually mean it. When your back is against the wall. When you can't see past the next hour. When one more day is genuinely all you've got. Listen, as Rev. Sean talks about what it means to be human at your...

Rev. Gretchen begins a new series: Rock Bottom Spirituality. Listen as Rev. Gretchen shares reflections from her own experiences of "rock bottom," including what happens when we try things we never thought would work - since, when the usual tools stop working, sometimes the next step is simply to start trying anyway. We have all faced that moment when you realize you can’t do it on your own. You’v...

Guest minister Rev. Kelly Dignan explores low-barrier moments that pull us out of isolation and fear into connection and hope.  Alongside all the ways we intentionally build community, there can be small, effortless gatherings that emerge and create a reason to linger - in an airport, a fairy garden, on a driveway. 

What does it mean to have a secret inner world, where the secret isn't deception or dishonesty, but something you've chosen to tend on purpose? A space that belongs only to you?  So many of us are running on fumes right now. Burned out. Disconnected. Scrolling past each other. The great spiritual traditions have always known something about this. They've always invited people into the intentional...

This Earth Day Sunday, we lean into the tension of the reality that so much of what fills us with wonder and gratitude can be temporary and fleeting. Together in an all-ages service we honor both the beauty and the ache of being alive. With shared ritual, and music from Christopher Watkins Lamb, we practice meeting the living world with reverence, honesty, and gratitude.

In hard times, pleasure is not frivolous. It is one of the ways we stay human. When the world is frightening, exhausting, or cruel, we can become cut off from our bodies, from joy, from appetite, from play, from beauty, from one another. We can start living only in vigilance, productivity, grief, or survival mode. Rev. Gretchen shares how she had to personally remind herself of this after an espec...

There is a kind of love that looks away. That holds up the beautiful parts and quietly ignores what's cracked underneath. But that kind of love doesn't hold. You cannot truly love what you refuse to see. Rev. Sean bring us a message this Easter about what it means to stay present with what is broken, to extend grace before anything makes sense, and to recognize the resurrection that is already hap...

Rev. Elaine invites us to into the sacredness of subtraction. Love calls us into movement work in so many ways – and sometimes, not in the ways we’re expecting.  Could it be that seeking out rest, inconvenience, and social awkwardness are just what we need? Sounds…weird, wonderful and awful! Join us for an exploration of the less-discussed movement work that just might carry us through in the long...

Rev. Christopher Watkins Lamb invites us to channel our longing and deep imaginations to create the village that is our birthright.  We'll draw on Rev. Christopher's work as an eco-chaplain, musician, spiritual care practitioner, and lead Chaplain at Poudre Valley Hospital, and upon the wisdom of Susan Silk and Barry Goldman's "Ring Theory" of crisis response, to explore how to care for each other...

Join us in a very special conversation with Rev. Sean and Dr. Cori Wong, Experimental Public Philosopher and a member of our Fort Collins Community.  In her uniquely playful and creative style, Dr. Wong reminds us that movements for liberation ask us to follow the lead of those most impacted, and that the best followers are good learners. Together we'll ask ourselves: From whom do you learn? What...

What does it really take to join the Movement? Rev. Gretchen explores the difference between casual activism and accountable neighboring — and why real transformation asks more of us than good intentions. In Unitarian Universalist language, this is covenant: making promises in love, staying in relationship, and helping tend the whole. If you’ve been longing for deeper belonging, wondering what thi...

"Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty!" Even for the most polite and least confrontational among us, love can call on us to disrupt and create tension in service to justice.  Rev. Elaine Aron-Tenbrink leads us in an exploration of where our collective power lies and how we might create “good trouble” together.

What are you tending? Are you squash, or beans, or corn? Does gardening align with fascist ideology? Rev. Sean tells a story about an overheard conversation at a botanical garden, that provides a winking insight into how we might find our place, our role, in The Movement to resist the authoritarian breakthrough that is happening right now. 

"It's okay to change your mind." We’re living through a critical moment, when democracy is being tested, as is our capacity to see one another as fully human across real difference.  A few weeks ago, a group of our ordained and lay ministers traveled to Minneapolis thinking we were going to help them. Instead, they helped us - offering an immersive learning experience in how to respond with our va...

At the recent protest at the Minneapolis airport, clergy knelt on frozen ground, prepared to be arrested… and prayed the Lord’s Prayer in unison. One UU minister told Rev. Gretchen that, for the first time in her life, this prayer felt exactly right. How would the words have felt for you? Comforting? Curious? Off-putting? Empty? This Sunday we will explore our relationship to Jewish & Christia...

In this moment, we are called to inhabit one of the most ancient stories: the story of being good neighbors to each other, in love and in protection.  Rev. Elaine explores how being a neighbor is more than a moral concept—it’s an ancient, relational practice that calls us to listen with humility, cross lines of difference with compassion, and remember our deep interconnection with one another.  "W...

There is an old story that has a hold on us, and it needs our cooperation to stay alive. The old story that says "nothing changes". The one that says "stay in your lane". It can't survive without you. Which also means, it starts to break the moment you stop repeating it.  This message from Rev. Sean is an invitation to practice. Not heroism, but faithfulness in the struggle. Small moments of being...