On this page:

• Worship Schedule
• Description of Worship Services
• Lay-Led Worship Services
• 2025-26 Worship Arc

Worship Schedule

Each month’s plans for our 10:30 a.m. Sunday worship services appear here. Details about the worship service for the upcoming Sunday also appear on our Home Page. Childcare is always provided without reservations for Worship, Mindfulness Meditation and Forum.

May 3, 2026 – “Joy Is Not Made to Be A Crumb” – Rev. Dr. Molly Housh Gordon

Join Rev. Molly for her last sermon before sabbatical. Mary Oliver tells us that in the presence of life’s beauty and possibility, we must not hesitate, we must give ourselves over to it. And this month’s worship theme reminds us that survival is not a wasteland. It is a dance party. How can we spend these summer months giving ourselves over to the dance?

May 10, 2026 – Flower Ceremony = “Come to the Garden” – Monica Clark-Robinson and Jamila Batchelder

Join us for our beloved annual Flower Ceremony, a Unitarian Universalist celebration that dates back to 1923 Prague. Bring a flower with you to share in our common bouquet, and you’ll go home with a different flower brought by one of your fellow UU Churchers. We’ll also have beautiful music from our choir.

May 17, 2026 – Bridging Sunday – “Emerging, Becoming, Belonging” – Monica Clark-Robinson and Jamila Batchelder

Join us to celebrate the UU youth bridging into young adulthood, to bless them on their journeys, and to think about our own lifelong growth.

May 23, 2026 – “That’ll Preach” Lay Preaching Series – “The Unitarian Universalist Land of Oz” – Anna McAnnally

What do the 14 Wizard of Oz books have to do with surviving authoritarianism? It turns out, a whole lot! These books, and our times, invite us to consider our roles in the fight and how to continue holding hope for the future. How can children and children’s media help us hold onto optimism while learning and planning along the way?

May 30, 2026 – Youth Sunday – “Survival is a Teenager” – YRUU Youth Group

All year we have been thinking about survival, and who knows more about surviving than a teenager? Join us for this favorite Sunday every year when our High School Youth Group takes over the chancel… and the pulpit. Come be inspired by our incredible young people!

The Zoom address for our 10:30 a.m. Sunday worship is
https://zoom.us/j/380411489
You can also join by phone: 312-626 6799
Webinar ID: 380 411 489

Services are also streamed live to Facebook

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Description of Worship Services

We offer a worship service every Sunday at 10:30 a.m.. The current month’s schedule appears above. Services last about one hour.

Children are present for about the first 15 minutes, which includes a stones of joy and sorrow ritual. The children then leave for their religious education classes. Nursery care and our full religious education program for preschool through junior high school are offered at this time.

Although each of our services is unique, services usually begin with a welcome from a member of our Board of Trustees and occasional special announcements.

Interspersed with a variety of music and hymn singing, the typical service also includes the lighting of the chalice, one or more inspirational readings, a sermon or homily, an offertory, an opportunity to express joys and sorrows, and a closing benediction.

After the service we gather for fellowship, conversation and coffee.

Members of the Worship Associates assist in planning worship services and also participate in conducting services.

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Lay-Led Worship Services

Our lay-led services honor our commitment to lay involvement in church leadership and our church’s history. We began in 1951 as a lay-led fellowship, and thus all services were lay led until we called our first minister in 1980.

From September through May, we have occasional lay-led services, and many of the services are lay led during the summer. The Worship Associates organize the lay-led services. These services are often non-traditional and unique and allow individuals to speak to a topic of interest or lead the congregation in exploring a variety of activities related to the many facets of worship and spirituality.

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2025-26 Worship Arc

This year’s worship arc is “Survival Is a Garden.” To develop the themes for our year, the Worship Associates, the Writing for Spiritual Sustenance Group and Rev. Molly took inspiration from a poem by Kyle Tran Myhre called “When It Really Is Just the Wind and Not a Furious Vexation.” In it, the poet reflects that all the post-apocalyptic images of hard-core guys with machetes on motorcycles are false visions of survival. Instead, he realizes, “…in every universe in which / I am alive, it is because of other people.” He lays out a vision of thriving where we all survive because we know we need each other, and then he lays down these two beautiful couplets that have inspired our year:

Survival is not a fortress. It is a garden.
Survival is not a siren. It is a symphony.

In this moment when fascists are trying to sell us a bleak wasteland of survival, built on violent control and betrayal of one another, it is time for us to remember what real, collective survival is… and what it isn’t.

Together with your Worship Associates and Writing for Spiritual Sustenance Group, and some of Rev. Molly’s beloved colleagues, a huge list of things that survival is and isn’t was generated. Nine of them became our themes for the year. They are all worthy of our reflection, and we invite you to bring us even more!

One way we survive is with art, and there will be many ways to creatively engage in collective art and creative prompts around the themes this year, including our new first Friday offering – “Guidebook to the Garden,” when we will explore the theme together in more creative ways.

What is our collective survival, and what is it not? Join us all year to deepen our understanding together.

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