2025 Services
Recent Services | 2025 Service Recordings | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021
"An Optimistic Faith"
Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
2/9/2025
Because leaders are human, they make mistakes. If the leader is a king or a tyrant, the people must simply suffer the leader's mistakes. But in a democracy, like the United States or a Unitarian Universalist Church, leaders are our leaders, and it is our privilege and responsibility to hold them accountable.
"An Optimistic Faith"
Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
2/2/2025
Because we are free, the future is open. Because the future is open, there are no certainties, either of glory or of doom. Uncertainty makes space for doubt but also optimism. Unitarian Universalism is characterized by a sense that our future will be better, because we can make it so.
"Courage, Friends"
Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
1/26/2025
Courage, or fortitude, is one of the four cardinal virtues. Allied with wisdom, temperance, and justice, the ability to endure hardship without faltering and to move toward the good and best without fear, encompasses all the other qualities that define the highest path of living.
"The Ability to Achieve Purpose"
Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
1/19/2025
The power to direct our lives and achieve our goals is essential to spiritual health. Where can we find our power? The life and work of Martin Luther King provide three answers. Natural gifts give power when matched to appropriate work. Faith gives power when we align our lives with divine aims. Righteous causes give power when inspiring dreams call us to action.
"Your Life is a Garden"
Angelica Rowell, Guest preacher and musician
1/12/2025
"Your Life is a Garden" is a heartfelt exploration of personal growth, resilience, and spirituality. This message invites you to examine the conditions that either foster or hinder their growth and is an inspiring call to cultivate patience, create supportive environments, and trust the process of becoming.
"Who Am I, Really?"
Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
1/5/2025
It's easier toward the end of life to see that what we call the self is widely changeable. I'm not the person I was as a child, or teen, or young adult. My self becomes more stable as I age, but perhaps I've just given up exploring and experimenting out of laziness or have learned to accept a version of myself grown comfortable by habit. How, if I found him, would I recognize the me I was born to be?