Archives: Services

Understanding & Dealing with Fear

It’s been a banner year for fear. Recently, there’s been an abundance of fear-driven responses to world, national and local events. In this UU Sunday Service, we see that fear leads to other emotional responses, and blocks us from engaging in rational discourse and decision making. Understanding fear can be the first step in keeping it from clouding our thoughts, allowing us to react in ways that are helpful, constructive and kind.
Bob has been a member of MMUUF since 2001.  A retired educator, Bob last served in the education department at St. Michael’s College.  He worked in a number of schools, both in the US and abroad before beginning at SMC in 1999. In retirement, Bob volunteers with the VNA Hospice Program and with Meals on Wheels.
Please bring a donation for the local Jericho Food shelf. 

From A Place of Abundance

In this Sunday service, Jenn will share reflections on abundance, scarcity, poverty, wealth, trauma, resilience and the dignity and worth of contribution.
Jenn is a lifelong UU who has nurtured her spirituality at 9 different UU fellowships and churches. She has been a member of Mount Mansfield Unitarian Universalist Fellowship for over a decade.

“Being and Personhood” by Rev. Jennifer Pader

What do we mean by an authentic encounter of two beings? Does the First Principle honor the dignity and worth of every being, or just every human being, or only some human beings?
Rev. Jennifer Pader, M.Div., STM, LMSW is interested in the relationships of human beings to each other, to community, to society and to other species. This is Jennifer’s fourth and final sermon as guest minister at MMUUF during the 2016-17 program year. She wishes to express her gratitude to, and genuine love for, the MMUUF congregation.

Being Of Color and Colorful Beings – 9:30am

What is the source of our creativity?  How do we bring ideas and objects to life from nothingness?   Is there such a thing as divine inspiration?  Is the creative spirit the source of all faith?  Poets, painters, physicists, psychologists and theologians weigh in.

Our service leader is Rev. Jennifer Pader, M. Div, STM, LMSW.  Like the psychoanalysts of the British Object Relations school, Jennifer believes that play (for youngsters and children of all ages) and creativity are key to emotional and psychological well-being.  She is a former private student of the social realist painter Avran Soyer.  Jennifer is a supporter of arts in the schools, and finds creative joy in wordplay, cooking, reading, theology, playing in the Starr Farm dog park, and visiting her old friends Met and MOMA in NYC.
Please remember that each Sunday we ask Fellowship Members to bring a donation for the local Jericho Food shelf. Our Fellowship has been asked to provide canned fruit when possible. Our contributions are critical to their important work!

This I Believe

Jennifer Pader had been planning to lead this Sunday‘s service but illness has unfortunately conspired to make that impossible. MMUUF wishes Jennifer a speedy recovery and we look forward to seeing her later in the year!
A cast of This I Believe service leaders are coming to the rescue with a service perhaps a little more gently focused on Gratitude than it might have been in its regular March time slot. With spoken thoughts from Evergreen, Kelly and Gaye, you can anticipate a service that speaks to the eclectic and wondering happenstance of finding meaning and expressing gratitude in our daily experiences of life in this little corner of the ever-perplexing universe.

“There Will be no Peace or Justice Without a Planet”

Ruah Swennerfelt, a member of the Burlington Friends Meeting (Quakers), will speak from her spiritual experiences in the natural world, and her decades of work for peace, justice and Earthcare. She gives the case for the intersectionality of all the issues we face today. Her work and life are filled with joy and she sows the seeds of hope.

Living Into Covenant: Sharing Our Collective Work

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At this special service, we will share the draft of the MMUUF Covenant along with reflections about the process and the purpose. There will be opportunities for discussion (and offline opportunities for wordsmithing). Please join us for this important reflection and discussion.

Please remember that each Sunday we ask Fellowship Members to bring a donation for the local Jericho Foodshelf. Our Fellowship has been asked to provide canned fruit when possible. Our contributions are critical to their important work!

Please send any announcements or gratitudes for the Order of Service insert to ad…@mmuuf.org. Deadline is the Friday before the service. Thank you.