Upcoming Worship Services
February 16, 2025, "My Spiritual Journey, or Why I Waited So Long"
with Eileen Watrous, Carol Kline, Erich Eilenberger, and Aaron Pabst
February 23, 2025, "If They Say, 'No'" Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
Stewardship Sunday.
Universalism affirms that all creation is one. Ultimately, we will be together. But before we reach that goal, what responsibility do we have to hold on to those who would block our path or do us harm? When our invitation to love is refused we must concede that for this stage of the journey some will walk separate paths.
March 2, 2025, “Free to Be: Keeping Faith in Challenging Times” Rev. Ann Hines, Guest Preacher
After thousands of people around L.A. had lost their homes in fires, and a new authoritarian POTUS with plans for revenge had been inaugurated, someone posted on Facebook that they’d tried the 2-week free trial subscription to 2025 and wanted to cancel it. Funny, but sad as well — and things haven’t gotten any better. How do we "keep hope alive” during times like this? How do we protect ourselves from despair?
March 9, 2025, “Starting with Me” Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
Ash Wednesday, Lent
The spiritual life is often described as a journey. It's not the destination, we say, but the journey. But journeys have beginnings, too. We start from somewhere. And every pause we take along the path defines a new starting place: maybe still on the right track or maybe having wandered far afield. The season of Lent in the Christian tradition is about making a clear confession of where we are before we take a further step.
March 16, 2025, “Keeping it Real” Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
Although religion explores realms not available to empirical study, speaks in myths and parables, and for some, includes the supernatural, to be valuable, religion must engage with reality. I've always appreciated that Unitarian Universalism is what I call a "reality-based religion." But it isn't just our foundation in reality that counts, it's also our commitment to end in reality, with real lives made really better for real people.
March 23, 2025, "Praise the Power of Prose"
with Cricket Sloat, Drew Bastien, and Shannon Corder
March 30, 2025, “For the Beauty” Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
Spring equinox
As one of the three transcendentals: the good, the true, and the beautiful, beauty is a essential quality of being. All existing things are beautiful. Our spirits grow as we develop the ability to appreciate even the parts of existence from which we might otherwise be tempted to turn away.
April 6, 2025,
April 13, 2025, “Let Me Flower, Help Me Flower” Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
Passover
The story of Passover endures because it speaks to one of the fundamental aims of religion: liberation. We seek to be released from all that holds back individuals and groups from the full expression of our potential. The spiritual journey is the journey from oppression by others and by our own doubts and fears to the freedom of lives we make for ourselves.
April 20, 2025, “Something Always, Always Sings” Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
Easter
For Unitarians, who hold a conception of a strictly human Jesus, a physical resurrection is not possible. No human can die and later live again as that same person. But what if we think of Easter not as something that happens to individuals but as a lesson about life itself? Easter could celebrate an eternally existing spirit of life passed through communities, taking shape in collections of individual for a time, and then taking new shapes in later times.
April 27, 2025
May 4, 2025
May 11, 2025, “Continuous Creation” Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
Mother’s Day
The old story tells us that God finished the work of creation in six days and rested on the seventh. So what happened on the eighth day? Clearly creation wasn't finished because the universe has been continuously unfolding for fourteen billion years and will be new yet again tomorrow. On Mother's Day we celebrate the spiritual truth that all creatures are also partners in further creation.
May 18, 2025, "Loyalty: a Delicate Virtue" Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
To perceive that something is valuable, to connect ourselves to that thing, and then to stick with it when times get tough, is the virtue of loyalty. The value in being a friend, a member of a union or spiritual community, a citizen of a nation, derives in part from our agreement of loyalty. But when the object of our loyalty betrays our values how do we balance faithfulness with right of conscience?
May 25, 2025, "The Eternal Rememberer"
Memorial Day
"We remember them" we say, in one of the litanies from our hymnal. But if honoring the dead depends on memory, then what happens when memory fails? And does the value of a life die with the death of the last person who remembers? I can't respect such a contingent valuation. Something greater than human memory is necessary to give lasting honor to those precious but forgotten lives that came before.
June 1, 2025, Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels, Jacki Weber and the REE Committee
REE Sunday
Our annual culmination and celebration of the church's religious education and exploration program
June 8, 2025, Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels, John Bergquist and the Music and Tech Teams
Music and Tech Sunday
Our annual culmination and celebration of the church's music and tech programs.
June 15, 2025,
June 22, 2025, "Oh We Give Thanks" Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
Volunteer Recognition, Flower Communion
We close the church's program year with a day to recognize and thank the many volunteers who contributed throughout the year. And we ritually celebrate our community with the Unitarian Universalist ritual of flower communion. Please bring a flower to church today that represents your unique spirit and help us create a beautiful, communal bouquet.
June 29, 2025, “The Last Word” Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
Today I conclude my ministry career. Although my ordination is for life and I'll likely find small ways to serve as a minister in the future, today is the last Sunday I expect to preach from a pulpit of my own. I'll offer an extended benediction, some "good words", both for you at the close of this interim ministry, and for me, as our paths diverge.