Unfolding Faith: Sermons from Foothills Unitarian

In these days of fear, we must keep asking: what sacrifices must we make to make belonging real? Not just pretty words, but actual bodies fed, actual doors opened, actual love lived out loud. That's the work. That's the fight. Building a belonging so fierce, so wide, so stubbornly inclusive that even our enemies find themselves home.

The world is so beautiful - and in the beauty we see the fullness of what is broken. Our living practice invites us to answer the call of beauty, which is justice. This Sunday as part of our Beyond Belief series, The Rev. Mary Katherine Morn joins us at Foothills to dive into that invitation - that tug toward wholeness, even (especially) when everything feels broken - and the tools that love and b...

Join us as we explore the spiritual practice of hope-making—where faith isn't belief or proof, but the stubborn insistence that we belong to each other, and we're not letting go. In June, Rev. Sean addressed UU General Assembly, where the Liberal Religious Educators Association asked him to share how we approach social change here at Foothills. How we do the work when everything feels like it's br...

In our series that starts this Sunday, Beyond Belief: The Living Practice of Unitarian Universalism, we aren’t offering easy answers or spiritual platitudes. We're asking, what if faith isn't about believing the right things, but about living with courage, curiosity, and radical love? This Sunday, join Rev. Elaine as we begin the series "Beyond Belief: The Living Practices of Unitarian Universalis...

Allowing yourself to receive information that explodes nearly everything to which you’ve dedicated your life takes tremendous courage. Rev. Shawna Ambrose knew she had to do it, even though it meant letting go of a proudly held identity, a way of understanding the world, a mode of serving the greater good with pride, and connections with family and community. Witness Shawna’s story of military ser...

Sometimes, life in religious community can feel like an experience of exile in the exact place where we most deeply yearn to belong.  Roger Butts, Unitarian Universalist minister, shares his own journey of coming to peace with his Christian background.  Telling of a journey through shame and alienation, Roger shares how he finally found a way to living with his heart wide open. June 22, 2025

June 15, 2025

There are moments that cleave our lives into before and after. For some of us, those moments arrive gently, like dawn breaking slowly over familiar landscape. For others, they crash in like lightning—sudden, illuminating, impossible to unsee. In this installment of our Tell It Like It Is series, Jamal Skinner, founder and Executive Director of the Fort Collins Cultural Enrichment Center, shares on...

We crave growth and transformation – and yet, we will go to great lengths to avoid actual change. We want to know one another more deeply – but when someone else’s truth challenges our worldview, our first move is often to start building a defense of our own position. Join Rev. Elaine in leading with curiosity and holding your certainties a little more softly as as Lucrecia Medrano, local leader a...

Today, Rev. Sean asks a question that can feel impossibly complex to some of us - Can you be a UU conservative? When politics feel like a litmus test for belonging, it’s easy to confuse shared opinions with shared faith. But Unitarian Universalism calls us to something deeper: a covenant that holds space for disagreement, tension, and the holy work of staying in relationship anyway. Rev. Sean Neil...

Today we explore the ways the Earth is constantly inviting us to move from being observers to full participants in the vibrant, living world...but are we ready to receive the invitation? Coming alive may demand everything from us, but we receive everything in return -  if only we're able to truly hear the call. Rev. Christopher Watkins Lamb // May 18, 2025

We’ve been taught to find the sacred in what’s far away — untouched trails, quiet forests, pure air — but what if holiness is right here, tangled in the places we share, the bodies we inhabit, and the carbon we exhale? This week, we’re diving into that story that lives beyond dualisms. A story that is about much more than carbon, but about the spiritual life, and the common good, and about life in...

Folk tales are more than just entertainment. They contain within them seeds of wisdom that help us live with purpose and meaning. In accompanying a sister on a quest to rescue her eleven brothers, what will we learn about ourselves? Join Rev. Christopher Watkins Lamb in an immersive, musical morning as we discover how the Danish tale of The Wild Swans connects us to awe and inner strength.  Rev. C...

Today, we’re diving into the spiritual gifts of awe — that sacred pause that draws us out of ourselves and into the vastness of everything. We’ll remember together that awe isn’t a luxury, but a core human experience that offers us healing, connection, and guides us towards right action.  In these times when despair and disconnection encroach, practicing awe is more essential than ever. Rev. Elain...

This Easter Sunday, we began our new series Earth Magic, rooted in the messy, relentless wisdom of the living world. Rev. Sean began with the Easter story — not the sanitized one, but the version that ends in silence, in fear, in the ache of what’s still unresolved. Because if you’ve looked around lately, you know: we are living in the middle of unfinished stories. The story of justice. The story...

When caregiving feels invisible, impossible, and isolating, the truth is still this: you were made to care and be cared for. You are part of a sacred human story—one of mutual belonging and deep connection—and your love, your presence, your compassion, are not only enough; they are holy. Rev. Elaine Aron-Tenbrink // April 13, 2025

Home isn't built with bricks, borders or bureaucracy -- it's built with truth, and too often that truth threatens the systems built on silence and fear. You were made for more than quiet compliance; you were made to live fully, love boldly, and name who already belongs. You have something powerful to offer: the audacity to tell the truth in a world that profits from forgetting it. Rev. Sean Neil-B...

How do we plan for and shape the future using only our limited knowledge of the present? How do we resist the temptation to think that there is one singular strategy or person who can right the ship of our society in these complex times? Join Rev. Elaine Aron-Tenbrink for a special conversation with social ethicist and lifelong activist Dr. Sharon Welch, in exploring a way forward that calls us in...

Jonah's story isn't just about a runaway prophet - it's about the relentless call of love, the uncomfortable grace that refuses to be contained, and the transformation that happens when we finally face what we've been avoiding. You were made for something more than comfort, more than certainty, more than the walls you've built to keep love at bay. You have something valuable to offer - a voice tha...

Esther didn’t choose power, but when the moment came, she had to decide: would she risk everything for a greater good? We confront privilege, sacrifice, and the call to step forward—not for ourselves, but for the liberation of others. Rev. Elaine Aron-Tenbrink // March 16, 2025

The world is full of voices telling you what time it is - who's in charge, what matters, and where you stand - but how do you know who's holding the clock? You weren't made to simply follow someone else's timing; you were made to discern the moment for yourself, alongside others. This message invites you to see beyond your own perspective, embrace the wisdom of community, and step into the shared...

Jacob wrestles through the night, refusing to let go until he receives a blessing. What does it mean to engage in struggle—not as something to avoid, but as a path to transformation? We begin our series with an embodied ritual of wrestling with faith, history, and our call in this moment. Rev. Elaine Aron-Tenbrink // March 2, 2025

How and why we should resist the constant pull towards tribalism and othering, and the genuine good news of Universalism in a polarized age. 

Rev. Christopher Watkins Lamb leads us in an 8-minute breathing meditation using Sarah Dan Jones's Meditation on Breathing. Rev. Christopher is Foothills Unitarian's Community Minister. Community ministers extend the reach of Unitarian Universalist ministry beyond the congregation. 

Rev. Elaine Aron-Tenbrink offers a guided meditation to cultivate self-compassion. May this meditation be a reminder that when we are feeling stuck and brittle and can only see the world through a lens of scarcity - when we are most in need of a blessing - we have the capacity to offer a blessing to ourselves. This meditation is adapted from the work of Dr. Kristin Neff, who is a scholar on the to...