Church of the Larger Fellowship UU Worship

In the Christian Scripture of Luke, Jesus is asked, “Who is my neighbor?” We will be paying attention to the people in our neighborhoods--physical and metaphorical--so that we might better respond to them with love.

Join us this week as we explore the importance of communal rituals like worship in creating the sacred bonds of belonging.

Regarded as one of the founders of gospel music, Rev. Charles Albert Tindley, an African American Methodist minister, composed the songs, “The Storm is Passing Over” and “By and By” over 100 years ago, and they continue to sing to us. In witnessing the rise of fascism and authoritarianism, how do we keep journeying toward a world of greater acceptance and affirmation? Perhaps Rev. Tindley’s example of generosity can inspire us all.

A close friend of mine described death as "not the end, only a change of address." This has stuck with me and on this weekend where most people celebrate love, we will honor death and the reason we grieve is indicative of how much we love.

What does it mean to cultivate generosity of spirit? The practices of generosity, gratitude, hope, and interdependence can be part of our embodiment of resilience, especially in difficult times.

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken on Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft. Carl Sagan wrote about this image and its implications for humanity. We will explore what it means to be human on a pale blue dot floating through space.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

When powers and principalities do their worst, how do we receive and respond to the call of love?

Poet Nikita Gill, in a blessing of a poem for the beginning of 2026, tells us that “when love comes knocking, do not doubt it. Instead open the door with warmth and let it in.” Sometimes, love comes knocking from unexpected sources. We will experience that love and allow it to challenge us to practice our faith in deeper and more liberatory ways.

The Words of Welcome from our Beloveds in Newton, Iowa:

As one, we seek to be treated fairly.

The heart in your chest pulses with life as does mine.

Each step we take on our journey allows us to explore who we are.

As believers in a multitude of thought, we embrace the challenges of acceptance.

Through recognition of the effects of our actions we govern our words and deeds.

In the spirit of unity, we vow to give as much as we receive.

Every soul who seeks our community will be given the opportunity to become the masterpiece that nature intended.

With this vow we open our hearts to the love of one another in this place.

As is our custom to begin the year, our tech crew is on holiday break. Donté and Aisha will come to you live through Zoom, sharing a less-formal worship experience on our monthly theme of Love.