Below is a list of past sermons given at The Fellowship. Once you find the sermon you’d like to listen to, just click on the sermon title listed, and it will open that sermon in a page with the options to listen to it via the web, to download the MP3 for listening offline, or to open the transcript of the sermon to read.
by Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy
We might be familiar with the practice of confession– in which one’s transgressions or sins are confessed to a cleric. But what if we practiced confessing good deeds? What joy might we find within ourselves and others? What healing might take place?
Reading: Excerpt from Unlacing the Heart: Connecting With What Really Matters by Henry B. Freeman
by Rev. Leah Hart-Landsberg
It’s easy to burnout in our current society, due to grief, trauma, worry, injustice, overstimulation, and more. So how do we keep showing up? The Age of Overwhelm: Strategies for the Long Haul by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky suggests that sometimes doing less is more. Whether or not you read the book or attended an all Fellowship discussion, join us for a service with practical tips about how to keep on keeping on.
Reading from The Age of Overwhelm: Strategies For the Long Haul by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, excerpt
Poem: For When I Really Don’t Want to Learn This by Elizabeth Nguyen
by Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy
This year at the Fellowship we are going to be focusing on Healing– Our world can sometimes be a hard place, and we all have wounds and scars from life! The purpose of our UU fellowship is to help each other live fully, deeply, and well, finding healing and wholeness in community and helping to heal our world. We’ll explore this theme on this, the first Sunday back to two services (9:00 am and 10:45 am) by exploring the ancient Japanese art of kintsugi, or repairing broken pottery with beautiful gold.
by Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy and Rev. Leah Hart-Landsberg
Henry Bergh, the founder of the ASPCA and fellow Unitarian, was born 206 years ago this week! Come celebrate his legacy with an Animal Blessing service. Well-behaved pets, on leashes or in crates, are welcome to join you today, or bring a stuffed animal or photo in lieu of pet. After our short all-ages service, we’ll bring animals outside (weather permitting) for an individual blessing of each animal. A special collection for the Fox Valley Humane Association will also be held today, so bring a check, cash, or an item from their wish list to donate — foxvalleypets.org/donate
by Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy
Each week when it’s time to open the Wonder Box, we remind everyone that wondering is an important skill for being a Unitarian Universalist. We have questions, doubts, and things we don’t know, and those can be gifts rather than burdens. Come, wonder together! Questions can be submitted this morning and Rev. Christina will do her best to answer them “on the fly.”
by Rev. Karen Hutt
Do you have a special place where you feel safe? Is it your garden, a cabin, or that favorite easy chair? Sanctuary has many meaning and expressions. Come and explore the cultural, social, and spiritual contexts for sanctuary through a historical lens.
The Rev. Karen Hutt has been a UU minster and educator for over 20 years. She lives in the Twin Cities with her partner the Rev. Ashley Horan and their two daughters Aspen and Zi. Rev. Hutt serves as Vice President for Formation, Vocation, and Experience at United Theological Seminary and is the editor of The Call to Care; Essays by Unitarian Universalist Chaplains, which is available for purchase HERE. She has preached at the Fellowship before, and we are delighted to have her among us again for this service, and for the pastoral care team training she will also lead.
by Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy
When we think of people who “share their faith,” we might conjure images that are pushy, invasive, or even harmful. Unitarian Universalists have historically avoided proselytizing, for good theological reasons! Join us as we explore how we might avoid proselytizing but get better at evangelizing! Sharingour faith, generously and lovingly, might help people who have no idea our life-saving religious communities exist! Come find out what the difference is between proselytizing and evangelism, and how we can be more welcoming without being pushy.
by Marie Luna, Director of Congregational Life, with Mark Bernstein and Dee Verkuilen
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” —Howard Thurman
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” ― Frederick Buechner
How do we find what makes us come alive? How do we name our deep gladness, or passion, in ways that help us give back? Some people take on too much to be effective, and others are immobilized by the enormity of the world’s needs and give up. Hear stories from Marie Luna, Dee Verkuilen and guest Mark Bernstein about how they found their own unique callings.
by Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy
Many of us have heard of the Golden Rule – “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.” But is there anything better than gold? What about platinum? Let’s talk about how we can do even better!
by Rev. Jim Coakley
Sometimes the universe gives you one of those perfectly beautiful days in which a sense of the sacred surrounds you everywhere. Unfortunately, at those very same moments our self-absorption and ego often won’t let us appreciate it. Come let me tell you about one such day while kayaking a few summers ago.
