Celestial Lands The Religious Crossroads of Politics, Power, and Theology

Category Archives: Worship

Virginia Knowles

“Worship is the highest communal act because of its leveling quality and its total commitment. In Worship, as in no other activity, we leave behind or roles and our statuses.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A person will worship something – have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts – but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character. Therefore, it behooves us Read more →

Worship as Emotive Experience

This past Sunday, I became emotional in the pulpit… again. Ok, truth to be told, I’m always emotional in the pulpit. It’s part of why I never schedule anything for Sunday afternoon, because preaching a good UU sermon will wipe me out, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I usually maintain enough Read more →

Service of the Living Tradition Day: GA 2010 Day 2

Day 2 of General Assembly has always been in my mind “Service of the Living Tradition Day”… and this year it was my Service of the Living Tradition. Oh, and I took communion as well… Read more →

Worship Education

As I am finishing a paper for a class, it struck me that it might be useful for me to put another part of that paper on the web.  This paper was for a class with Rev. Betty-Jo Middleton on Models in Religious Education.  It is a section of the larger Read more →

Unitarian of the Holy Spirit

It has been said that how we express the chosen faith of our adulthood greatly depends on attitudes and concepts that hold deep meaning for us as children. We often form our adult faiths in rejection of those childhood forms, or we transform them into new and deeper meanings. The Read more →

Farewell UCE

Today is the last day of my Internship and then Summer Ministry at the Unitarian Church of Evanston Illinois. It was a wonderful and formative experience, and I will miss being a part of the life of this wonderful congregation. Here is a link to the sermon I preached this Read more →

Can a Relational Faith be Online?

For the first time in the almost four years that I have been actively preaching in Unitarian Universalist Churches, I presented a sermon at a church that podcasts its services… so there is now an audio of that sermon online. I have listened to the podcasted and streamed sermons of Read more →

The Word Between Us

One of the most common questions I have been asked by those new to Unitarian Universalist worship is why the sermon is so central to our faith? For many it seems incongruous… that in this faith of inherent worth and dignity, where the responsibility for spiritual growth is placed on Read more →