Unfolding Faith: Sermons from Foothills Unitarian

After the Fall

What happens after we mess up—after we hurt someone, fail ourselves, or cause harm, intentionally or not? 
We can either spiral into shame—or we can turn toward growth. Shame disconnects us from belonging, but growth deepens it.
This Sunday, Rev. Gretchen Haley continues our Broken | Open series with wisdom from the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Together, we’ll explore how to find meaning and belonging—even after we fall short.
✨ A creative story for kids and youth✨ Gorgeous music to ground and lift us✨ Belonging, even in our brokenness

Broken/Open to Lament

Lament is the cry of the heart that says: “This pain matters.”It doesn’t try to fix, defend, or explain. It witnesses. It gives voice to the grief, anger, confusion, and sorrow we so often carry in silence.Across traditions - from the Hebrew psalms to Buddhist stories, from African American spirituals to modern poetry - lament has always been a way to be fully present in life as it really is.Together, we’ll learn how lament can connect us, comfort us, and remind us: whatever you’re carrying, you don’t carry it alone.You can expect a space for all-out whining and collective sighing, maybe even some stomping of feet. And of course powerful music from Julie Koenig the whole way through it all. Most of all, the invitation to both share and witness all that we are holding, in community. Let's do this, together.Link to Book of Laments: https://simplebooklet.com/bookoflaments#page=1

BeWilderment

Feeling entirely lost? Confused? Sometimes, right when the map fails, the real path begins. This Sunday: bewilderment, whirling, and the possibility that being lost can be the place where we are ultimately found.  Rev. Gretchen will be preaching, Christopher Watkins Lamb and Julie Koenig will be leading music, Rev. Elaine will be reading a wild poem about a crab, and many of us will be twirling. Maybe including you? Hope to see you there! 

It’s Not Just You

Do you ever get the feeling that you are having an experience NO ONE could ever understand? Something too hard, too embarrassing, too messy....these feelings can make us feel so alone, and so isolated. But what we have learned (especially those of us whose job it is to meet people in these challenging moments) is that these moments that feel unique to you, are often the exact things that other people are struggling with too. 
This Sunday, Rev. Elaine shares from her experience as our lead minister for pastoral care to remind us that the place where you feel most alone is often your place of deepest belonging.  

We Are Not Who We Were, Thank God

You don’t become a different person overnight—but staying in long-haul relationships has a way of slowly confronting who you were and calling out who you’re becoming. This message from Rev. Gretchen looks at how deep, lasting connections reshape us over time in ways quick fixes never could.

Water Ceremony 2025

This Sunday we share a re-imagined and reinvigorated Water Ceremony ritual for all ages. This tradition was born from UU women 45 years ago who got tired of being told how to worship and decided to create their own ceremony, and this year we take up their mantle as we reinvent this piece of our living tradition in our own way. We explore what it means to be dammed up and what it feels like when those dams finally break, practicing the radical act of letting barriers come down.
We'll look at the Klamath River, where the largest dam removal in U.S. history just happened. After a century of being blocked, salmon are swimming home. The river remembers.
We're made of that same stubborn, remembering water, and its gifts are also ours:
The wildness of the water is a current alive in within you, within us, flowing in a way that needs no permission, no apologies, no restraint.
The power of the water is ours, together - a force within us like a river that's been gathering behind a dam of lies for decades, finally free to carve new channels through everything that tries to contain us.
Wild belonging, as innate as the belonging of a river in its bed of stone and soil, is ours to claim when we only remember that we’ve always been part of this current.

Truth Won't Hold Still (Rev. Justin Schroeder)

We gather to celebrate and honor the extraordinary Eleanor VanDeusen, who is retiring after 26 years of ministry in religious education and family ministry at Foothills. 
Revs. Gretchen, Sean, and Elaine, along with guest minister Rev. Justin Schroeder guide us. Rev. Justin grew up at Foothills and worked with Eleanor as a youth coordinator.  He reflects on both Eleanor, and also on what our children, youth, and families need from the church now, as truth refuses to be still, continuing to unfold and reveal new understandings and possibilities.
This Sunday we also bless backpacks for all our kids and school employees about to start their new school year! Plus, we’re joined by musical guest Adam Podd!

Answering YOUR Questions