First Universalist Church of Minneapolis Sunday Service Podcast

In this season of returning and restarting, we affirm the boundless worth of each and every person, and encourage one another to act with courage and compassion. The multigenerational service offers children, youth, and adults of all ages the opportunity to reflect upon how we might carry the love of our church community and the tools of our faith with us wherever we go. Expect some fun and surprises!

Children and youth are invited to wear their school backpacks to church so that we can include them in the Backpack Blessing ritual.

Call to Worship by Lauren Wyeth, Director of Children, Youth and Family Ministries at First Universalist Church and sermon by Rev. Jen Crow. 

The poet, John O’Donohue, suggests that our inner teacher emerges: “In the out-of-the-way places of the heart, where your thoughts never think to wander, this beginning has been quietly forming, waiting until you were ready to emerge. For a long time it has watched your desire, feeling the emptiness growing inside you, noticing how you willed yourself on, still unable to leave what you had outgrown.”

This Sunday we explore how we might listen to our longings and learn to slow down and dance with life in a new way – not as an obstacle course to get through, but as a host of holy voices calling us to greater loving and living.

Call to Worship: I Worried by Mary Oliver, read by Rev. Elaine Aron Tenbrink; Sermon by Andrea Johnson, Director of Congregational Programming at Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Our racial justice commitments lead us to know that in the face of white supremacy, we should “de-center whiteness,” but what then? This service will explore the dynamics of centering and de-centering and what they might mean for us as a church and denomination.

Call to Worship read by Rev. Elaine Aron Tenbrink and Arif Mamdani from the writings of Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd, Sermon by Arif Mamdani

We often say that kids give us hope for the future. And clearly that’s warranted, with so many youth leading and living in courageous, compassionate and creative ways. If we’re placing our hope in them, how are we called to support the young people in our communities? Admiring them from a distance is not enough. This Sunday we’ll explore ways we can help ensure our hopes are realized, while still leaving the next generation plenty of room to spread their wings.

Call to Worship: Let Our Children by Jeanne Harrison-Niewejaar, read by Rev. Ruth MacKenzie; Reflection: My Other America by Rui Rui Bleifuss; Sermon by Lauren Wyeth, Director of Children, Youth, and Family Ministries

We often say that kids give us hope for the future. And clearly that’s warranted, with so many youth leading and living in courageous, compassionate and creative ways. If we’re placing our hope in them, how are we called to support the young people in our communities? Admiring them from a distance is not enough. This Sunday we’ll explore ways we can help ensure our hopes are realized, while still leaving the next generation plenty of room to spread their wings.

Call to Worship: Let Our Children by Jeanne Harrison-Nieuwejaar, read by Rev. Ruth MacKenzie; Sermon by Lauren Wyeth, Director Children, Youth, and Family Ministries

​In most ​Danish churches, a model of a​ ​sailing ship hangs ​suspended​ from the ceiling​ somewhere above the congregation.​​ The boat shifts ​and sways ​​with the breath of ​those gathered, reminding ​everyone who enters and worships ​that we are meant to sail together. We explore our emerging understanding of community, not simply as a group of like-minded people, but as a covenantal community, tapping into something larger than our individual wants or longings. We explore the question: What would it mean to be in the boat together, particularly using our racial justice commitment as our nautical compass?

Call to Worship and Sermon by Rev. Ruth MacKenzie