Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation's Podcast

This podcast is from the worship service live streamed on February 21, 2021. The sermon is presented by Rev. Mary Katherine Morn and Heather Vickery and is preceded by the audio from a video with adrienne maree brown . Leaders of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee share how we Unitarian Universalists can ground ourselves in the vision of the Beloved Community and support their important...

This podcast is from the worship service live streamed on February 14, 2021 and led by Minister of Faith Development Rev. Emily Gage. Walt Whitman famously wrote: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes." This sermon considers the multitudes within each of us, in our history and in the stories that we tell and believe. The theme for February is...

This podcast is from the worship service live streamed on February 7, 2021 and led by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor. As our congregation explores "Welcoming All," what are we welcoming all to? If we are about transforming lives, what are we transforming lives for? Rev. Taylor shares his vision of a Unitarian Universalist congregation. The theme for February is what it means to be a beloved comm...

This podcast is from the worship service live streamed on January 31, 2021. Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd from Bethesda, Maryland speaks powerfully from her Washington, DC neighborhood and asks, "Whose imaginations created our current national culture and our spiritual community? Whose voices and stories do we need to lift up?" The theme for January is what it means to be a people of imagination. To re...

This podcast is from the worship service live streamed on January 24, 2021 and led by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said at the March on Washington, "Again and again we must rise to the majesty heights of meeting physical force with soul force." It's still true and Rev. Taylor explores how soul force has made a difference in American history and suggests what...

This podcast is from the worship service live streamed on January 17, 2021 and led by Minister of Faith Development Rev. Emily Gage. Muhammad Ali put it this way: "The [person] who has no imagination has no wings." This cuts right to the essential importance of imagination—the ability to see beyond the here and the now. Rev. Gage reflects on re-imagining our past and future, with the help of Isabe...

This podcast is from the worship service live streamed on January 10, 2021 and led by Rev. Allison Farnum, Director of the Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois. Join with us as we kick off our quarter-long study of Transformative Justice with Rev. Allison, who invites us to re-imagine the world through the lens of our Unitarian Universalist faith and the work of the Unitarian Univers...

This podcast is from the January 3, 2021 worship service live streamed on Christmas Eve and led by Ministerial Intern mandi huizenga. As the New Year dawns, let's use our imaginations to examine the collective desires of our community through the Unity Temple mission statement. Using our shared community imagination with new imagination partners, let us bring the reality of Beloved Community to fr...

This podcast is from the December 27, 2020 worship service live streamed on Christmas Eve and led by Ministerial Intern mandi huizenga. Let's send out 2020 with a bang! Join us as we bid adieu to the old year, jazz style. A brief musical introduction is followed by Luna Ortega-Huizenga reading A Letter to Management . Then, mandi presents her reflection on the year end supplemented by Jack Ridenou...

This podcast is from the 8 pm worship service live streamed on December 24, 2020. At our later candlelight Christmas Eve service, Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor explores what following the Christmas star can mean today after a heart-wrenching year. The theme for December is what it means to be a people of stillness. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit  http://www.unitytemple.org...

This podcast is from the 4 pm family worship service live streamed on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2020. Minister of Faith Development Rev. Emily Gage shares how the three rules of elves can inform our approach to Christmas. The theme for December is what it means to be a people of stillness. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit  http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-con...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on December 20, 2020. This December hasn't gone how any of us has planned; it's lot less busier and noisier than usual. Minister of Faith Development Rev. Emily Gage reflects on finding meaning in the quiet moments at a difficult time. The theme for December is what it means to be a people of stillness. To read about our theme-based ministry,...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on December 13, 2020. Reflecting on the mission and vision of this congregation, Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor explores the current challenges in our Welcoming All initiative, upended by the pandemic and the arc of our continuing journey, until we begin the deep dive into Inspiring Compassion. The theme for December is what it means to be...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on December 6, 2020. Reflecting on how inner stillness is a space within where we can listen to the genuine, Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor explores how inner stillness moves us from chronological time to "kairos" time which mystics call "real time" or "God's time," and where the goal is in Rabbi Abraham Heschel's words " not to have but to...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on November 29, 2020. The sermon is delivered by Ministerial Intern mandi huizenga. To be human is to live and love in brokenness, for to be human means loss and pain. How can we be resilient in that brokenness? How can we be holy and whole? Can we leverage that brokenness to create a world more just, to create the Beloved Community? The them...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on November 22, 2020. Rev. Gage shares, "I know this sounds a little ridiculous, but I am inspired by those leaves that are still hanging on the trees this late in the season. There they are, still surviving, against all odds. You know, kind of like us. Here we are over 8 months into our pandemic existence, and we are still persisting and res...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on November 15, 2020. Members of our community, Ken Hooker, Carol DiMatteo, Dr. Elías Ortega, and Tom McCann join our ministers and share unique challenges and losses that have come with the pandemic and how to cope. The theme for November is what it means to be a people of healing. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit  http:/...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on November 8, 2020. Many of us are struggling with how nearly half the voting public sought to give our current president four more years. Rev. Alan Taylor reflects on the need for religious liberals to take time to rest, rejuvenate and ready ourselves for the future.   The theme for November is what it means to be a people of healing. To re...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on November 1, 2020. During this deeply anxious period in history, Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor reflects on the importance of invoking the love of those who have gone before us and how we can navigate this uncertain time.    The theme for November is what it means to be a people of healing. To read about our theme-based ministry, please v...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on October 25, 2020. The sermon is delivered by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor. Howard Thurman served as a mystic for the civil rights movements of the 50s and 60s. His teachings are as important today as then as he teaches that only by going inward can we effectively go outward. Pastor Otis Moss III says, "America wants to think of itself...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on October 11, 2020. The sermon is delivered by Intern Minister mandi huizenga. We UUs love rationality and reason which encourages us to "think through life." The mind, however, is only one part of what it means to be human. We lose so much when we ignore the other parts of ourselves. mandi reflects on what listening to the heart and body, b...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on October 11, 2020. The sermon is delivered by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor. Rev. Taylor applies Buddhist teachings and the Hebrew story of Elijah's search for God to the contemporary need to center ourselves and to respond compassionately to suffering. The theme for October is what it means to be a people of deep listening. To read abou...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on October 4, 2020. The sermon is delivered by Minister of Faith Development Rev. Emily Gage. Join in this exploration of the challenges and gifts of deep listening (not just listening, but deep listening), through the help of Mister Rogers, StoryCorps and James Baldwin. The theme for October is what it means to be a people of deep listening....

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on September 27, 2020. The sermon is delivered by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor. Reflecting on the wisdom of Yom Kippur and the unique gifts of Judaism, Rev. Taylor explores current challenges and America's need for repentance and repair—and the central role of the religious community. The theme for September is what it means to be a peopl...

Today's podcast is from a worship service live streamed on September 20, 2020. The sermon is delivered by Minister of Faith Development Rev. Emily Gage. Reflections on a new year, dogs' greetings, letting go and life six months into a pandemic.  The theme for September is what it means to be a people of renewal. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit  http://www.unitytemple.org/faith...