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.

 

Mother Spirit, Father Spirit – Meg Harrelson

Norbert Čapek, author and composer of the hymn today’s service is focused on, was a Czech minister, born and raised Catholic, who found his way to Unitarianism via the Baptist church. He composed the hymn we just sang, “Mother Spirit, Father Spirit.” I am an atheist. I’m sure I’m not the only one in the…

This Is My Song – Rev. Caitlin Cotter Coillberg

This summer our kids are taking on the Olympics in their worship breakout groups- talking about how the themes of the Olympics connect with our UU values, and also our goal of world community, our goal of being where we are and who we are and also appreciating the wider human experience. They’ve been building…

Spirit of Life – Rosanne Douglas

Spirit of Life, come unto me.
Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion.
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea
Move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice.
Roots hold me close; wings set me free
Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me

There Is More Love Somewhere – Rev. Kristin G. Schmidt

I was appalled when I heard the news that schools in Louisiana are now required to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Along with exasperation and outrage at such a blatantly unconstitutional mandate, it raises a lot of questions. How and why did they choose the particular version of the Ten Commandments each classroom must display? And why waste time and resources on performative religion when they could be used instead to, say, provide free breakfast and lunch to all schoolchildren. 

Hymn Sing Sunday

This week we did not have a sermon but rather sang hymns that were suggested by the congregation together! You can watch and/or listen through the YouTube link below. Here is a list of hymns we sang: #1021 Lean on Me #212 We are Dancing Sarah’s Circle #1064 Blue Boat Home #34 Though I May Speak with Bravest Fire #1 May Nothing…

Superhero Sunday – Rev. Kristin G. Schmidt

Not long ago, a woman was robbed while walking on the sidewalk in Cleveland, Ohio. She was the victim of the crime, and yet when the police arrived, they arrested her. Despite her lack of a criminal past, the judge set her bail at $25,000, an impossible sum for a mother of seven. This meant she had to stay in jail until her trial, which didn’t come for two whole months. While in jail she lost her job, she and her kids suffered distress and anxiety, and her extended family all had to pitch in to keep the family together. That’s the story of how the cash bail system in Cleveland nearly destroyed one woman’s life and family.

What an Owl Knows – Rev. Caitlin Cotter Coillberg

Winnie the pooh says that “if anyone knows anything about anything, its OWL who knows something about something.”  

Owls, Jennifer Ackerman writes in her recent book “What an owl knows” have truths to tell us, from afar—from their perches and nest deep in old-growth forests, deserts, the Arctic—and from up close, in the hands of vets, rehabbers, researchers, and educators.  We would be wise to listen, she says.

Demands of the Age – Rev. Abhi Janamanchi

The title of my sermon is borrowed from Rev. William Ellery Channing, who used it to great effect in 1824 during the ordination and installation service of his associate colleague Ezra Stiles Gannett. Channing referenced a verse from Matthew that set an ominous tone to the proceedings: 

“Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: Be ye, therefore, wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”