Unfolding Faith: Sermons from Foothills Unitarian

Meet The Movement - The Practice Of Radical Neighboring

"It's okay to change your mind."We’re living through a critical moment, when democracy is being tested, as is our capacity to see one another as fully human across real difference. 
A few weeks ago, a group of our ordained and lay ministers traveled to Minneapolis thinking we were going to help them. Instead, they helped us - offering an immersive learning experience in how to respond with our values at the center: courage + humility, strategy + creativity, care + resolve.
This sermon kicks off a 8 week series where we will practice what it means to become neighbors in a deeper way, building spiritual resilience, making meaning together, and learning the practices a movement for courageous love requires.
 

Swords into Plowshares, Weapons into Tools

At the recent protest at the Minneapolis airport, clergy knelt on frozen ground, prepared to be arrested… and prayed the Lord’s Prayer in unison. One UU minister told Rev. Gretchen that, for the first time in her life, this prayer felt exactly right.
How would the words have felt for you? Comforting? Curious? Off-putting? Empty? This Sunday we will explore our relationship to Jewish & Christian scripture and how it relates to us as Unitarian Universalists in this moment - what we can reclaim, refuse, and carry forward in the work of courageous love? How can we turn these texts from weapons used for division, into tools for community?

Radical Neighboring

In this moment, we are called to inhabit one of the most ancient stories: the story of being good neighbors to each other, in love and in protection.  Rev. Elaine explores how being a neighbor is more than a moral concept—it’s an ancient, relational practice that calls us to listen with humility, cross lines of difference with compassion, and remember our deep interconnection with one another. "Won't you be my neighbor?"

The Old Story Needs Your Cooperation

There is an old story that has a hold on us, and it needs our cooperation to stay alive. The old story that says "nothing changes". The one that says "stay in your lane". It can't survive without you. Which also means, it starts to break the moment you stop repeating it. 
This message from Rev. Sean is an invitation to practice. Not heroism, but faithfulness in the struggle. Small moments of being willing to tell the right story wrong. To say the right thing though your voice may shake and crack. So that when it matters most, when your neighbor needs you, when the stakes are real, you've already been exercising the muscle. 
Courage isn't something you find alone. It's something we practice together.

More Than One Story

This Sunday we honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and bear witness to the many layers of story in the present moment. Rev. Gretchen along with members of the congregation, weave the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with first-person accounts from the Civil Rights era, testimony from the present moment, scripture, poetry and song.You will hear the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Claudette Colvin, Carin Mrotz, Mamie Zwadie King- Chalmers, Matt Suarez, Hollis Watkins, Aurora Levins Morales, Susan Raffo, Rev. Ashley Horan, The Gospel of Matthew, and Carol, a current resident of Minneapolis. You can find a full transcript of the readings and watch the whole service here: https://foothillsuu.churchcenter.com/episodes/597762

Finding Our Way in the Dark

Rev. Sean opens the "New Story. New You" series with “Finding Our Way in the Dark.”
A good story can inspire someone to action, provide hope to get you through a hard time, or help us empathize with an unfamiliar perspective. But a well told story can also dehumanize, sew doubt, or spread fear.
"The thing about stories, is they don’t just describe what is, they prescribe what’s next." 
Listen as Rev. Sean reflects on the power stories have to shape how we experience the world, the ways we view the people and events around us, to what we believe the future holds.What story do you have inside of you?

Fire Ceremony - Releasing In the Turning

We must release before we can receive. We open the new year with our annual Fire Ceremony—a powerful ritual of letting go. Before the new direction becomes clear, there is always a threshold: a space where the old stories, habits, and burdens must be set down so that something truer can take root. Through fire, reflection, and shared intention, we will name what no longer serves us and create room for what is waiting to emerge. Come ready to loosen your grip, to trust the unknown, and to begin again.
If you would like to participate in the ritual element, we recommend you gather the following items before listening: Small piece of paper Pen/pencilBowl of Water Stone or other heavy object There will be prompts to write, followed by music. The music is your cue to take the paper you've written on, and put it in the water, symbolically or literally destroying it. 

Listening in the Turning

Between the noise of holidays, pause to listen to that still small voice within. Community Minister and Hospice Chaplain Rev. Roger Butts will guide us into the contemplative practice of listening—listening to our own hearts, to one another, and to the call of the holy. In the quiet few days after Christmas and before the new year, we’ll make space to hear what we might otherwise miss: the wisdom that speaks only when we are still.