Worship Service at 10:30 AM; Hybrid services have prelude and/or opening music starting between 10:25 am and 10:30 am.

UUCSS holds hybrid services (offering both online and in-person in the Sanctuary). Details about upcoming services can be found at https://uucss.org/event-category/upcoming-sunday-services/

If you wish to attend in person, the sanctuary is at 10309 New Hampshire Avenue, at the corner with Oaklawn Drive. We have a parking lot off Oaklawn Drive Directions can be found at https://uucss.org/contact/campus-locations/. Please follow our UUCSS guidelines, https://uucss.org/uucss-covid-guidelines/.  

To participate remotely, please enter our Zoom room by clicking on Zoom Link for Worship, ASL and Coffee Hour, on Sundays between 10:00 am and 10:30 am during the Slide Show and Prelude, or later while the service is occurring. You can also just click the direct link in the Sunday morning all-church email reminder. 

American Sign Language Interpretation will be available live during the service, either in the sanctuary or remotely. In either case, the ASL Interpreter will be visible two ways – merged into the main video feed from the sanctuary (if present locally in the sanctuary), and as a Zoom participant with their own Zoom window.

For guidance on deaf participation via Zoom, please visit https://www.uucss.org/deaf-access, or view the guidance provided on slides shown prior to the Prelude.

For information about our Religious Education program, visit https://uucss.org/uucss-religious-education-classes/

Coffee Hour begins at about 11:30 am, both in person and on the same Zoom session as the worship service, and can be accessed at this Link: Coffee Hour. The ASL interpreter will generally be available during Coffee Hour, in an ASL breakout room or whichever room deaf participants choose to join.

Past Services can be found at the UUCSS YouTube page, https://www.youtube.com/c/UUCSS.

 

The Gospel of Equity – Rev. Kristin Grassel Schmidt

When I was in high school, a girlfriend of mine from church landed a role in her school musical. So, I went with a group of friends to go see her show. I went to Wheaton High School years before it was renovated into the beautiful building you see today driving down Randolph Road. So when I entered Quince Orchard High School for the first time, I was shocked. The single production I saw that night was better funded than Wheaton’s drama club was the whole four years I went there. Quince Orchard had an art gallery in their building while Wheaton had several bathroom stalls that didn’t even have doors. 

Now More Than Ever – Rev. Kristin Grassel Schmidt

Sixteen years ago my husband, Christian, was laid off from his job as a newspaper reporter. As more and more people began turning to the internet for news, journalists like Christian began to lose the jobs they’d gone to school for, and dedicated their lives to. The fourth estate was reduced to a shell of itself, and it impacted the lives of thousands of people. 

Generosity of Spirit – Rev Kristin Grassel Schmidt

I started some of my seeds for my garden the other week. My thumb is only beginning to turn green, but while I’d love a good harvest this summer, the real reason I garden is that it makes me feel grateful. 

There’s something about watching seeds, dirt, water, and light transform into new life that fills me with wonder. It takes a lot of work to grow my beloved broccoli and wax beans, tomatoes and butternut squash. And some seasons my plants do horribly, often for reasons I don’t understand. But at the heart of all of the soil amending and hardening off, watering and weed pulling is a process I didn’t create, I can’t really control, yet upon which human life depends. It makes me feel kind of small in the grand scheme of things, like I’m held in something much bigger than I am. But mostly it makes me feel grateful. Grateful for all of the people whose labor brings me the food I eat. Grateful for the miracle of photosynthesis. Grateful for life abundant. 

Reimagining for Revolutionary Love – Rev. Kristin Grassel Schmidt

There is a lot of fear within and among us today. There’s anxiety and disbelief, cynicism and rage, too. Everyone I’ve talked to in the last week seems to feel overwhelmed. Just keeping up with the news feels like trying to take a sip from a fire hydrant. As colleague and former minister of this congregation, Rev. Ellen Jennings shared on social media yesterday, “every day now is a Pearl Harbor of the soul.”

Speak Truth in Love: Dismantling Bullying as a Spiritual Practice – Guest Speaker Rev. Dayna Edwards

Hi all, I am the Rev. Dayna Edwards and my pronouns are she and her. I serve as the Minister of Faith Formation for Cedar Lane UU Congregation. I am especially excited to be here today, because Silver Spring was the first UU congregation that I became a member of almost 24 years ago, or so. I remember one of the first services I went to was a woman preacher (!) Rev. Liz Lerner Maclay preaching about the DaVinci Code and that maybe God was a woman? Well I immediately knew Unitarian Universalism was my faith. Now, to have come full circle and be preaching here myself feels very special. So thank you for having me today.

Making Room for the New – Rev Kristin G Schmidt

Long, long ago a prince was raised inside a beautiful palace. His family loved him so, and because they didn’t want him to suffer, they shielded him from all of the harsh and unpleasant things in life. He grew up unfamiliar with illness, death, and poverty until one day he left his gilded cage and…

Raging for Revolutionary Love – Rev. Kristin G Schmidt

Private health insurance has been under scrutiny this week after a gunman murdered Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare on Wednesday. The murder opened a sort of emotional steam valve, and people on social media have used humor to express their rage at a system that’s denied them and their loved ones care, sometimes resulting in…