Spiriitual Growth

Worship Leader: Rev Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate:  Julia Alberg-Burbank
We are told that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Join us as we kick off our drive to grow our community in resources, depth, spirit, and impact.

Worship Leader: Rev Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate:  Ginger Hemingway
Every yarn is different. Cotton, wool, acrylic, silk all feel different as you knit or weave or crochet and each creates a different fabric with unique qualities. Our relationships, too, ask us to be attentive and intentional in unique ways with each individual and situation. Join us as we explore the fabric of relationship.

Worship Leader: Lauren N. Nile
Worship Associate:  Bryna Blum
The concept of equity is as crucial today to our American society, to the world, and to our future, as it ever has been. But what is equity? Why is equity so critical to both our future as a nation, and as a species? What risks does continued inequity in economics, education and other important areas pose to our future? What are the unimaginable results of a world in which equity is valued and practiced? What are we, as moral, ethical people, called to do in humanity’s maturation toward greater global equity?

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate:  Steven Toporoff

Join us as we celebrate the volunteers that help our community grow and thrive. We’ll also welcome new members to the congregation and celebrate the arrival of new life!

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate:  Denise Janssen Eager

The world around us, the world we are an integral part of, is changing in drastic and dangerous ways. Where can we find hope? Where can we build hope? Might science and science fiction show us a way? Might there be a spiritual path to hope?

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate:  Julia Alberg-Burbank

The world offers us each beauty and possibility if we just look. Join us as we celebrate the beautiful diversity of the world in a return of our Flower Communion. Bring some flowers to share. Our annual congregational meeting follows this week’s service.

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate: 
Claudia Simmons
All year we have been exploring the values laid out in proposed new language crafted to share what we UUs hold in common as we do the work of crafting the beloved community together. Join us as Rev. Ian sums up or year of exploration and as we look forward to doing our own work of visioning for this beloved community in the year to come.

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate:  Julia Alberg-Burbank

This weekend we celebrate Memorial Day, honoring those people who have given their lives in the service of their country. How are we honoring their legacy? How are we taking care of those who still serve or have retired?

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate: 
Steven Toporoff
We are faced with responding to the growing forces of fascism in our country and in our world. How can we, as people of a progressive faith, protect our civil society and our neighbors and kin. How does our faith tradition call us to be in the world and how does it offer us grounding for resistance and thriving?

Worship Leader: Rev. Molly Housh Gordon, Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbia, Missouri
Worship Coordinator: Rev. Ian W. Riddell

We are all tangled up together in a great web of life that is woven with beauty and hardship, love and loss, thriving and struggle. How do we tend well to the weaving so that all of us are held in care? Join us as we share in the Sunday service from the 2024 Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly shared with Unitarian Universalists around the country and around the world. We will watch the service at our normal time of 10:00am in the Sanctuary. If you wish to watch from home, we will share the link for the service closer to the date. Note that this service will be longer than our usual 60 minutes.

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate:  Bryna Blum

Researcher Brené Brown explores practices for grappling with failure and struggle in our lives. How does her sociological and psychological insight parallel our commitments to spiritual growth and loving relationships?

Guest Speaker Rev. Frank Dunn
Service Leader: 
Steven Toporoff
This week, we welcome the Rev. Frank Dunn. He and his husband, Joseph Casazza, are neighbors, living in Cathedral City. Rev. Dunn will focus on a few of the many lessons he has learned over his half-century career as an Episcopal priest, and from his involvement in all aspects of congregational life. Says Rev. Dunn: “I couldn’t possibly unpack more than a slice or two of what I’ve learned, but there’s a handful of things I’ve learned that might be useful to others in assessing what they have gleaned from the practice of Christianity. No one enters our lives without having something to teach us.

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate:  Julia Alberg-Burbank

Some of the super-heroes we see on the big and small screen recently have been around for a long time—Superman turned 85 this year! Their fictional lives and experiences might offer us opportunities to reflect on our own growth and development.

Worship Leader: Reverend James I. Ford
Worship Associate: Bryna Blum
UU minister and Zen teacher James Ford will explore the nature of the spiritual life as an arc from our first noticing the world through the quest for meaning and depth. He likes stories and we may find ourselves invited into one.

Worship Leader: Rev. Barbara Fast
Worship Associate: Joni Padduck
Drawing from Heritage and Tradition is a beautifully vast invitation for this August. Each of us can go deep and far with that prompt. Currently, I am occupied by our national news. I hope to draw forth some useful insights as we live these times. I look forward to being in your pulpit and sharing the morning with you.

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate: Mel Wilkinson
Our UUA General Assembly this past June agreed to changes to the ways we taught about what we believe and commit to. But GA brought conversations and discussions beyond the new values statements. Join us as we explore what’s going on in our wider faith tradition

Worship Leader: Swamini Adityananda Saraswati
Worship Associate: Steven Toporoff

How did the happiest man in the world become so happy? Researchers wanted to find out. What was revealed was stunning… and transferrable to our own lives. Join interfaith leader, Swamini Adityananda Saraswati, for an inspiring morning as she shares secrets from the East, and reveals how they can be easily practiced anywhere: at home, in traffic, or wherever else you may feel inspired.

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate:  Walter Gendell

This weekend we are joining the Unitarian Universalist Climate Revival—focusing our hearts and minds on the environment and living into new ways to nurture a thriving environment of all of life and building new connections between us as we do this holy work.

Worship Leader: Grace Garner
Worship Associate: Denise Janssen Eager

How do we act as leaders and allies in the fight for justice in a world that is pushing us further and further apart? When is it our duty to be bold and when do we know to step back and listen? We learn from Palm Springs Councilmember Grace Garner about how being raised at UU Fellowship of the Desert (later UUCOD) taught her how to use her position to respect, protect, and speak out for justice even when it isn’t easy.

Worship Leader: Rev. Ian W. Riddell
Worship Associate:  Ginger Hemingway

We UUs cherish democracy. It grows out of our deepest values of inclusion, generosity, and interdependence. This morning, as we are getting ready for a momentous election, we’ll explore what a spiritual commitment to democracy means and how we can work toward democratic thriving in the reality of our divided culture.