Worship at the Sedona Unitarian Universalist Fellowship encourages and enables congregants to fit their lives into a larger whole. They grow by engaging with what is greater, wiser, and more compassionate than their individual selves.
Worship elements often vary, but a constant theme is relationship. The Sunday service connect congregants to their faith, their values, and the sacred mystery in which they live.
They start and end with music. The music director, Susannah Martin, chooses songs that evoke a particular spirit and have lyrics that echo and enrich the week’s sermon theme. Throughout the service, attendees may drawn into deeply spiritual listening or invited to sing, clap, and move their body in joyful harmony.
A chalice candle is lit to create a sacred space in the beautiful synagogue sanctuary where Sedona UU services are held, and to connect congregants with their UU kin around the world.
Individuals are invited to share the celebrations and griefs, the joys and sorrows, in their life that they want others to know about. This strengthens the strands of familiarity and friendship among them.
The service includes moments of silence and spoken meditations. Members use different terms for these interludes according to their beliefs and practice. Each encourages aligning one’s full attention with something greater or something deep inside so that the wisest voices—the most important voices—can arise from the clatter and chaos between their ears.
A central element in UU services is the reading of a brief text and the presentation of a sermon or a message by the minister, Anthony Mtuaswa Johnson. A century ago, it would have been based on Christian scripture. Today, the liturgy might draw from contemporary poetry, a sacred text of another religion, or pop culture. UU’s faith is elastic, curious, inclusive. Each sermon inspires and challenges the congregation. They invite listeners to reflect on life’s most demanding questions and to discover their deepest truths.
Unitarians discover that there is always more to learn about how love really works, and could work, in our lives and in the world. Their worship guides them in maintaining relationships of respect and mutuality. Each week something greater is evoked: perhaps a narrative about the people present, a value that can enliven and uplift their life, or the responsibility to carry their commitments into the world.
January 10, 2025