Unfolding Faith: Sermons from Foothills Unitarian

What does it mean to be a part of a church where we say - going in - we're going to fall short? Individually, and collectively, we will fail.  Especially as a part of our launch of our new vision! Explore this question through the sharing of stories from the congregation, all a reminder of the belonging that is possible when we are honest about our shortcomings and support each other in the learning and growing and beginning again. Join Love,Built, a whole church challenge to practice our new Vision together.Love, Built. is whole church challenge to practice our new vision together. Together we will complete challenges that invite us to discover what living into our new vision statements looks like.Go on a deeper spiritual journey. Join a Journey GroupAt Foothills this fall, our Generations Journey Groups offer a chance to build genuine relationship with Foothills congregants of different generations. This is how we live as a resilient and interdependent church community where people freely and mutually give and receive care, trust and support.

Failing can feel…humiliating.  Especially when witnessed by others. We often immediately want to blame someone or something else – “something that makes me look or feel foolish couldn’t possibly be MY responsibility, right?”
We want to get things right and effortlessly show how much we know (while, of course, humbly offering help to others).  We want to be good.
But what if spiritual maturity actually springs from getting it wrong instead of getting it right? 
Join Rev. Elaine for a time of exploring the gifts of failure, the uses of humility, and what it means to be human in a world filled with blunders, bewilderment, becoming, and so much beauty.

What becomes possible when Unitarian Universalists "get religion"?A lot of people come to Foothills carrying real ambivalence about religion — and for good reason. We're awake to the harm religion has done, across history and still today.
But that hesitancy has a cost. It can keep us from claiming a vision for religion of our own, or contending with what our religion asks of us — personally, and together.
Our new vision statements are built to change that. The first words are the frame for everything that follows: we claim Unitarian Universalism as a religion. A religion with its own claims on us. Its own invitation to promise — and to keep promising — to ourselves, to one another, and to our world.
This Sunday we begin a seven month long examination of our three vision statements with the underlying question: What happens when Unitarian Universalists get religion?

Ask most of us whether we have anything to confess and we'll say "no". Not defensively, just accurately, as far as we can tell. We were right to walk away from religion that called us broken. But we didn't just leave the shame behind. We left behind the practice of reckoning honestly with our lives together, and the kind of room where truth and grace can hold the same person at the same time. For the last Sunday in our Reclaimed series, we take on sin and confession, and ask what it would take to build that room again.

In these hot, dry days of summer, we all know what it feels like to long for water. Literally. Metaphorically.
Last Sunday, that longing found its home in our annual Water Ceremony, as together we explore and practice the next word in our Reclaimed series….Ritual.
Here's your invitation. Find a little water from somewhere that means something to you. A river. A tap. A lake. Bring it with you.
For forty-five years, Unitarian Universalists have gathered this way - pouring what we carry into something we all share. All ages. All stages. One community.
Come with your longing, as we weave together that deeper belonging. 
Let’s begin again.  

No other word causes us UUS quite the same discomfort as "church". In certain circles, we can stay closeted for years about going to church on Sundays — afraid to claim the word as our own — even while loving the experience of our church.
This Sunday, we continue our Reclaimed Series by looking  directly at this word, why it stirs up such a strong reaction in so many of us, and whether (or why) it's still worth reclaiming.

Last Sunday we experienced Heads, Hearts, & Hands - our annual Question Box Sunday. This is a service where it’s all up to those gathered to bring their honest and direct questions about our thoughts, spirits, and work as Unitarian Universalists, and the ministers answer them on the spot. 
Question Box always manages to get just the right amount of silly, and at the same time, is a moment to freely bring your hardest stuff. The faith-shaking, assumption-rattling, keep-you-up-at-night questions, knowing our questions and uncertainties aren't problems to solve, but invitations to grow.

Where do you go to find out whether something is true? Not as in a simple fact you could look up, but the harder kind of truth: whether you're handling this right, whether it meant what you think it meant. 
Nobody works those things out alone. We never have, and in this sermon Rev. Sean looks at who we've been asking...and yes, we will be talking about ChatGPT!