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.

 

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.”

Across the Aisle, Across the Kitchen Table – Rev. Kristin G. Schmidt

Edwin Friedman was a rabbi, family therapist, and leadership consultant who is best-known for his work with religious communities. His book called Friedman’s Fables is a collection of stories he wrote to help explain family systems. I’m going to tell you one of those stories. It’s called “The Power of Belief” and it begins with a man who came home one day and announced that he was dead. 

Imagining Libertatia: Paradise, Pirates, and the Work of Mutual Liberation – Written by Rev. Caitlin Cotter Coillberg, Presented by Rev. Kristin Grassel Schmidt

This morning’s sermon, like the rest of the service, was written by Rev. Caitlin Cotter Coillberg, who is home sick today. It’s my pleasure to preach it in her stead:

“It is hard to be objective about Pirates.” That’s the opening sentence of activist, anthropologist, and anarchist David Graeber’s book Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia.

Empty Altars – Rev. Kristin G. Schmidt

Like a lot of families, mine celebrated our cultural and ethnic heritage in different ways. My mother lovingly made the traditional Hungarian and Slovakian foods her mother had cooked. No Christmas was complete for us without poppy seed stollen and cabbage rolls with sour cream, no family birthday conceivable without Chicken Paprikash and homemade galushkis.…

Who do we serve? A Pi Day Sunday Service – Rev. Caitlin Cotter Coillberg

During my study leave a few weeks ago I went, once again, to the Museum of African American History and Culture.  I went again in part to see the wonderful exhibit on Afro-futurism, eager to experience it without the distraction of two active curious toddlers.  If you missed our field trip to see that last year, it’s not too late! We need to find ways to celebrate imagination.