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.

Healing the Hungry Ghost

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Healing the Hungry Ghost
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by Shōjin Alford

In Buddhist mythology, the hungry ghost is depicted as having a long thin neck and a gigantic stomach. This leads to the feeling of never getting enough or being satisfied. Come experience healing music and meditations with Shōjin Alford to help heal the hungry ghost in all of us. Shōjin has been a member of the Fellowship since 1997 with her husband Tom Pynenberg. She is also an ordained Soto Zen priest with Clouds in Water Zen Center in St. Paul Minnesota.

Tell Them I Said Yes to Life

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Tell Them I Said Yes to Life
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by Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy

As we head toward the “holiday season” when families will likely be spending more time with each other, let’s spend some time exploring ways to have meaningful conversations about life and end-of-life. These conversations are hard, but they don’t need to be painful. What does our faith say about the ways we face life, and death, with love?

The Walking Dead

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The Walking Dead
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by Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy

The earliest zombie movie was called “White Zombie,” starring actor Bela Lugosi. While over 80 years old, it still holds powerful opportunity for reflection, especially on the powers that control our lives without our consent. What would it mean to “wake up” with awareness of those controlling powers, and regain autonomy over our lives?

On Aging

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On Aging
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by Rev. Leah Hart-Landsberg

It’s Monster Month, so this week we will meet the hag, the ugly old woman character that embodies negative ideas about aging. But our other October theme is courage and so we will bravely explore the process of becoming an elder. Our service will contain ceremonies of child dedication because, after all, we all start out young. If we’re lucky, we are also given the opportunity to age. Despite its challenges, growing older has unique purposes and gifts.

Exorcising Evil

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Exorcising Evil
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by Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy

Welcome to our first Sunday of the “Monster Month!” Each weekend we’ll explore different traditional “monsters” and how to face these monsters with courage. This week: Demons & Devils! These creatures exist in many world mythologies. What’s a UU to do with the idea of demons and devils? Are there ways in which this mythology rings true in the ways we face those things which have a negative hold on our lives, and how might we “exorcise” them?

Ready for Anything

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Ready for Anything
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by Rev. Leah Hart-Landsberg

Join lifelong Jewish Unitarian Universalists Rev. Leah and Fellowship member Jaclyn Kottman to consider September’s theme of welcome on Rosh Hashanah, the head of the Jewish year. How do we welcome who we wish to be? Maybe we hope to return to a former version of ourselves or to invite in a new phase entirely. In order to truly be ready for change, we need to accept our past and ourselves. This is hard work, best done in community. This service is for those from Jewish backgrounds and non-Jews alike and will include very special music by our own Mark Urness and Dan Van Sickle. At the end you will be invited to participate in a version of an ancient ritual called tashlich that helps us move on from the past and welcome the future.

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Mingling of the Waters 2017

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Mingling of the Waters 2017
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by Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy

Returning to the Well – A multigenerational service of story, celebration, song, and ritual. We will return from summer for our final single service, bringing water from our travels, our home, or our neighborhood park to mingle together. We’ll contemplate what it means to “return to the well” and pour out our waters into the world.

Off Center Faith

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Off Center Faith
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By Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy

Ever notice how the traditional flaming chalice symbol is off-center in the rings? Have you wondered why? Come hear the story of the whippersnapper Universalists and why we UU’s are an “off-center faith.”

Into the Answer; Our Annual Question Box Service

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Into the Answer; Our Annual Question Box Service
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by Rev. Leah Hart-Landsberg

It’s that time! Come prepared to jot down a question (about Unitarian Universalism, the world or anything else), and Rev. Leah will spontaneously respond to as many as time allows. Our reading will remind us that our true life task is to live out our own questions. The rest of the service is up to you!

New Beginnings

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New Beginnings
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By Rev. Christina Leone-Tracy

New beginnings: Rev. Christina, our new settled senior minister, will be here for her first Sunday in the pulpit with us! We will contemplate the joys and challenges of new beginnings, and celebrate a dedication of children as they also symbolize for us all that is good and challenging in beginnings.