Rev. Sunshine Jeremiah Wolfe
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Hymn Sing                                                          
          #390 Gaudeamus Hodie
                   (translation: We rejoice/are rejoicing today)
          #108 My Life Flows On in Endless Song
 
((WELCOME SLIDE))    
Welcome
     Rebecca-
“Good morning.” (Wait for response.)
“Welcome to the First Unitarian Church of Alton.  My name is ____________.  I welcome you into this community of hope and transcendence.  Here we seek wisdom beyond our own experience.  Here we open our loving minds to the mystery of wonder and the moral imagination.  Here we transcend the day-to-day of our lives to seek for truths both meaningful and sustaining.  Here we seek to offer a loving message that provides wholeness in a broken world.  We are Unitarian Universalists.
 
I offer my welcome to you and, in particular, to those who are first time visitors.  We invite you to fill out one of the visitor cards found in the back of your grey hymnal and place it in the offering plate or give it to an usher, we’ll send you our church newsletter for the next three months to let you know about the programs and activities going on here at the church.  We are glad you are here and hope to see you again on future Sundays.
 
We do have a nursery for infants and young children under the age of four years old through those doors to the left in the first room past the foyer.  Our religious education program begins when we bless our children on their way to their classes and concludes at 11:30 a.m.

At the front, we have a Spirit Chair which includes activities for all ages.  You are invited to go to the Spirit Chair at any time during the service to take an activity back to your seat.  Children and youth are encouraged to attend religious education programs when we sing and bless our children and youth later in the service.
 
We welcome everyone into this home of comfort, spirit, justice, and hope!”
 
Announcements
     Rebecca-  (Read announcement and then)- “and Pastor Sunshine has a few additional announcements.”
     Sunshine-
        We begin our worship with a prelude.
 
Prelude                “Starfish and Coffee” with Prince and the Muppets
 
Call to Worship/Opening Words                                                   Rebecca
         
Chalice Lighting
     Sunshine and Friends- 
          We light this chalice
          Symbol of Unitarian Universalism
          May it remind us of the divine spark in all of creation
          The power of love to heal what is broken
          And to be grateful for life’s blessings each day.
 
Opening Hymn             #100 I’ve Got Peace Like a River
 
Intergenerational Story                  “The Strawberry”                  Sunshine

Sermonette Part 1


Blessing Our Children
          “Please join in singing “Rejoice In Love” as we sing our children and youth to their classes.”
 
Ritual of Joys and Sorrows
          Sunshine-
                   Each week we take time to recognize the joys and sorrows; the celebrations and struggles of this community.  We do this by taking a stone or stones from the bowls as we enter or from the bowl here on the chancel.  We allow the stones to bring us into awareness of those things most important in our life through thought or meditation.  We then place them in the cleansing waters of this community which includes a little bit of water collected from our annual water communion.  If you have a joys, sorrows, celebrations, or struggles you wish to recognize, you are invited to come forward now in a ritual of joy and sorrow.
 
Meditation                  

Meditation Song                             #1002 Comfort Me
 
Offering
     Rebecca- 
“We each receive from this church the opportunity to explore meaning, purpose, and value in our lives.  How does the money you give reflect what you receive?  How does our collective money transform all within and beyond our congregation’s walls?
This morning’s offering will be gratefully received.  May it be lovingly given.”

Offertory                       “She Was” by Talking Heads
 
Offering Blessing
          Sunshine- “Please join in reciting the Offering Blessing”
 
          “To the work of the church which is weaving a tapestry of love we
           call community, we dedicate ourselves and these our offerings.”
 
(After blessing the Offering, please place the baskets on the flower stand.)
 
Reading                                                                                  Rebecca
 From the “Over-Soul” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
          ((While this is one long sentence, I invite you to take a pause at each point of punctuation.  It will make it easier for you to read and the congregation to hear)).
 
          “The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that, which must be, is that great nature in which we rest as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-Soul within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart of which all sincere conversation is the worship, to which all right action is submission; that overpowering reality which confutes our tricks and talents, and constrains every one to pass for what he is, and to speak from his character and not from his tongue, and which evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand and become wisdom and virtue and power and beauty.”
 
Sermon                         “Hold to Things Not Eternal”        

Ritual
                            Releasing of the Butterflies
          The congregation will move outside for this portion of the service.

Closing Hymn
               #1007 There’s a River Flowing In My Soul

​Benediction
                                               Sunshine
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