St. John's Unitarian Universalist

I recently had a three week fling with a non-practicing Unitarian Universalist and agreed with him for the most part on the subject of theology. Therefore, it seemed almost natural to want to attend a UU worship service. After much careful selection between the two UU churches that Jim offered for us to visit, Mr. Paul Rodgers and I selected St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church on the basis of it having 11:00 rather than 10:30 services.

We pulled up to the church at about 20 minutes early, took a deep breath, and went in. Upon entering the door we were greeted eagerly by Howard, the official greeter for the week. Howard gave us each a name tag to fill out and then wear. He also presented a brief orientation to the church and its services. We entered into the sanctuary and sat down. I noticed a long the outside wall there were beautiful peace cranes made out of all different colored and strung across the windows. The Order of Service revealed that these peace cranes are to serve as a reminder to all visitors on the necessity of promoting peace in the world.

The service began with announcements about the church that did not make it to the bulletin. Then a beautiful rendition of Gounod's “Funeral March of a Marionette” was played on the piano while the children of the church paraded around in Halloween costumes before heading downstairs for Religious Exploration classes. The minister than suggested to the congregation that they take the time to introduce themselves to someone knew and discuss what their favorite costume was. I was instantly greeted by some of the regulars and was told to keep coming.

The service proper than began with the lighting of a large chalice in the front of the sanctuary. A hymn was sung out of their hymnal Singing the Living Tradition. Then as an affirmation, the preamble to The Earth Charter was read in unison. At this point, the minister read “We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For” by Alice Walker. There was then an activity called “Wheel of Lie” which the order of service accurately describes as “A time to share a personal joy or sorrow from the past week.” It was at this point I learned that Unitarian Universalists have many different beliefs. Some ask for prayers to send to friends and family and others ask for positive thoughts to be sent their way.

At this point, the minister lead a meditation and suggested that congregation meditated on pure happiness. The point of this activity was to become purely happy. They then went into a traditional reading of Mark 1. The sermon that was delivered was entitled “Committing to the Future.” The main idea of it was that we need to commit to the future and fix the issue of global warming. He interpreted Jesus saying “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” more as “We're in the midst of an awesome paradigm shift.” This helped him adapt the Gospel of Mark to talk about how religion is experiencing a paradigm shift back into focusing on nature.

The service than closed with a hmyn, benediction, postlude, and then extinguishing the flame. I wasn't really that impressed with their service and was very glad to be back at home in a Christian service at 9:00 mass on Sunday night. This experience did the impossible, it made a radical protestant like me feel at home during a Roman Catholic mass.