For this Spring Music and Worship Service, the combined choirs at First Unitarian will be presenting a major work titled “Requiem for a Troubled World,” written by our Interim Music Director, Garrett Bond. This 7-movement work for Choir, Strings, Piano, and Soloists takes traditional movements from the Requiem Mass and…

Join us in Buchan Hall to celebrate Beltane, the Gaelic May Day. We will be celebrating the fullness of spring, your goals for the summer, and the joy of togetherness! Note: This event will take place in Buchan Hall. Please enter through the Salmon Street entrance (1226 SW Salmon St). Join…

This month we’ll explore the theme of calling. Would you say you have a calling in life? A purpose you would name? And what about institutions like the church, do they have callings?

One thing that we know for certain is that transformation is a part of life. Yet, we seem to be living through a period of particularly rapid changes in our society, and some of us may be living through a season of personal change as well. Change may bring us…

YRUU (Young Religious UU, First Unitarian’s high school youth group) has been cooking, and they want to tell you about transformations; challenging transformations, positive transformations, collective and personal transformations. Join us for a service of music and reflections. Everyone is invited for a special social hour following the service featuring…

As we welcome new members this Sunday, a reflection on what it means to be a member and part of a community of memory and hope. Our special music guest this service is Bobby Jo Valentine. Currently living in Portland, Bobby Jo is a hopeful mystic, grounded poet, and spiritual…

Come one, Come all! to our annual multigenerational Easter Sunday followed by an Easter Egg Hunt for children. Join us for contemporary and biblical stories that urge us towards hope and possibility. Sometimes a loss or an ending, can turn out to be a whole new beginning. Let us celebrate…

This month we are focused on weaving wholeness in our lives, in our community, and in our world. This is vital spiritual work as we work to counter messages that divide, dismiss, and disparage. On this Sunday closest to Trans Day of Visibility, let us reflect on the wellbeing and…

What does it mean to find wholeness? We are all works in progress and finding wholeness is the work of a lifetime. It has something to do with seeing all of our parts–the good parts and the parts of ourselves we have not always seen as part of the whole–as…

Join us in Buchan Hall to celebrate Ostara, the Spring Equinox, through honoring the lessons we have learned this past winter, and sending out wishes for the coming season and reemergence of the sun. Welcome the return of light and the season of new growth with an earth-based, simple yet…

Worthy Now is the name of the Church of the Larger Fellowship Prison Ministry program, we will explore the ways the CLF works to include and affirm both incarcerated and free world Unitarian Universalists in our ministry and how all UU congregations are a part of this life-affirming interconnected web.…

One of the reasons religions exist is to help us wrestle with life’s “Big Questions.” One of the biggest is “Why does suffering exist?” or “If there is a loving God, how do we explain the existence of evil?” Let us reflect together on these questions of theodicy from a…

We are in the middle of Lent, a season of spiritual renewal that falls mid-winter. It is a time of letting go of what holds us back and embracing what leads to a whole-hearted life. May we engage in reflection and practices that nourish life even in a time that…

As we mark George Washington’s Birthday, Ramadan, Lunar New Year, and the beginning of Lent, we will consider the role confession has in seeking forgiveness through the myth of young George fessing up to chopping down his father’s cherry tree. The Rev. Duane H. Fickeisen is a retired UU minister…

When the fabric of relationship(s) is tattered, how can we move towards repair?  What are some time-tested tools that we can use to express the pain that exists on both sides and between us? Let us move towards forgiveness using steps that ground us in compassion and our common humanity. This Sunday, we will…

Self-compassion can be viewed as the root of all forgiveness. If we are locked in a cycle of self-judgement, guilt, and shame, it can be challenging to practice forgiving others as well. What might healing and liberation look in terms of our own mistakes, missteps, and failures?

Throughout this year, we are delving into the theme of “Weaving Community.” This month we are reflecting on it through the lens of forgiveness. What can we do when the fabric between us is torn? This could be between individuals or between communities in ever-widening circles, including our relationship with…

Origin stories from Jewish and Christian scripture often get interpreted as explaining how God formed a complete world from scratch. But maybe that’s too simple a take on what’s happening in those narratives and why they stay relevant. Origin stories are usually just as much about us, the humans that…

Join us for our annual multigenerational Martin Luther King Day worship. This Sunday gives all of us – children, youth, and adults – an opportunity to reflect on themes that help us to grow into builders of the beloved community. What are the stories and the histories we are weaving…

As we reflect on the web of creation this month, we will notice that within it we witness the forces of creativity and weaving together, as well as the forces of tearing apart and destruction at work. In a time when many of us are reeling from destructive acts in…

Happy New Year! Our overarching spiritual theme of the year is “Weaving Community,” and this month we are focused on the topic of creation. As Unitarian Universalists, one of our main sources of wisdom is woven from humanist teachings, including what we learn from the sciences and the natural world.…

We are crossing thresholds all the time, some small, some large, but they come and they go. The new year offers us a kind of threshold. Where have we been and where are we going? What meaning might there be as we make this crossing?

Come one! Come all! to our annual Christmas Eve services where we will lift one another’s spirits with a message of hope, carols and other music of the season, and a special retelling of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Let us share in good cheer in a year where joy…

Join us for the Annual Church Christmas pageant. An old story of mystery, love, and connection--made anew each year by our care and attention. May it always be so!

You are invited to a special annual evening Winter Solstice service at the time of the shortest day and longest night of the year. Let us greet the arrival of winter, the season of chilly temperatures and darkness. At the same time, let us light candles to symbolize the returning of…

For this December, the combined music program will present a worship service celebrating the joys and wonder of the holiday season. Our program will feature some traditional holiday songs and selections that focus on the wonder and magic of the Christmas story. This purposeful programming is done as a way…