More Unitarian Worship Insights

Worship at First Unitarian

THE ROLE OF THE WORSHIP SERVICE

Our Sunday morning worship service is the one moment in the week in which we gather as a single community. It is often a transformative moment, reminding us of our connections to each other and to all of life. Ours is a diverse community. We come together holding a variety of differing beliefs. And yet, the worship service provides a focal point and regular nurturance for our lives.

Let’s use the metaphor of a living rain forest. Our system of principles and values for living is continuously growing and evolving as the seeds of new concepts and relationships are planted. The system needs sustenance and sometimes, under strain, may wither and die.

As a rain forest needs many diverse elements to survive--sun, rain, wind, soil, air, seeds--so it is with the spiritual life of the individual. In order for the system to thrive and continuously evolve, it must be regularly reaffirmed, challenged, reflected upon, have the seeds of new concepts planted, and old ideas and values pruned. Thus does the system for living evolve over time to support life.

WHAT HAPPENS IN OUR WORSHIP SERVICES

Although Unitarian worship services tend to be less liturgical and ritual-based than those in many traditional churches, our services do contain a number of common elements which move the gathered community through an hour-long experience of centering, reflecting and returning. These common elements are

Chalice Lighting

The flaming chalice is the most widely used Unitarian Universalist symbol. Its lighting is a signal to convene the service, a calling together and focusing of attention, invoking our readiness to worship.

Welcome and Greeting

At this point, we actively remind ourselves that we are truly a religious community, not simply a collection of individuals gathered in one place at the same time, by welcoming those around us to our communal endeavour.

Hymns

Singing is a joyous form of self-expression. Blending our voices together reminds us that we are not alone. We sing to awaken our spiritual life and energy.

Call to Worship and Unison Affirmation

This is the formal call to collective worship followed by the congregation’s recitation of a poetic statement of the core elements of our liberal religion:

Love is our doctrine,
the quest for truth is our sacrament,
and service is our prayer.
To dwell together in peace,
to seek knowledge in freedom,
to serve life,
to the end that all souls shall grow
into harmony with the divine,
thus do we covenant with each other
and with all.

Story
Our stories are for everyone. They allow children and the whole congregation to explore the morning's message from another point of view. After the story, the adults sing to the children as they leave for further exploration in their own style in our Relgious Education Program

Meditation
With music, words, silence and the opportunity to light a candle, congregants participate in a period of reflection and prayer.

Testimony

Our religion recognizes “the priesthood of all believers.” We are called to minister to one another. Part of this ministry, as well as an element of personal spiritual growth, involves naming for the congregation: What brought me here? What keeps me here? What religious or spiritual issue am I wrestling with at this point in my life?

Sermon

The sermon is usually the intellectual centrepiece of the service, and sometimes the emotional one as well. For many Unitarians, it helps to establish the Sunday service as “the still point of the turning world” (T.S. Eliot). At its best, the sermon is the core element in the transformative experience that the service is creating.

Offertory

All that our congregation is and all that it has, we bring to it. The first act of transformation is the giving of ourselves. This is our opportunity to turn ideals into action. We invite you to give generously.


Closing Words

A reminder to live the coming days in the spirit of Unitarianism, in the search for truth, and with a commitment to service and justice.

WE CELEBRATE COMMUNIONS

For Unitarians, communion is not about saving ourselves from a sinful human nature, not about making us exceptions to the laws of nature, and not about achieving eternal life among the angels. The word stems from the Latin for mutual participation, and for us it is about the communal celebration of life. We conduct communion services four times a year.

Water Communion (first Sunday after Labour Day)

Each congregant brings water from near or far to mingle with the water brought by others. This marks the end of summer and our coming together again as one religious community.

Bread Communion (Thanksgiving Sunday)

This autumn service marks our reliance on the good earth and upon the past. We give thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of our own unique history.


Fire Communion (last Sunday in December)

Life is the greatest gift; it offers the opportunity for connection and attachment but also the potential for loss. At the end of the year, each congregant burns a piece of paper containing a brief description of something he or she most wishes to leave behind and lights a candle for one new hope for the coming year.

Flower Communion (second Sunday in June)

Congregants bring flowers which are commingled and then redistributed, in celebration of the extravagant variety and beauty of life .

OUR COPPER CHALICE AND GLOBE

At the heart of life itself is energy, fire. We recognize that fire as the light of truth, the warmth of love, the heat of passion, the creative spark that bears many names: God or Goddess, Truth, Love, Spirit of Life, Ground of Being, First Cause. For Unitarian Universalists, that flame represents the essence of life itself. And so, at First Unitarian, it rests at the core of our copper globe.

The globe represents the universality of our Universalist heritage and the unity of our Unitarian heritage — the oneness of all people, the earth, the universe. We call it “the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part.”

The globe and the flame are at the centre of our worship service every Sunday. We have broken open the globe, to reveal the spark of life within. One half rests on the wall above to remind us that all life is interdependent. The other half forms our chalice, the cup which holds the flame that is the essence of every human soul. The globe and the flame rest among us as we worship together.

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GJ - I think it is worthwhile to see where the mockery of traditional worship ends. These people are serious about what they do and honest about what they do not believe. What should grind our gears is the constant mocking of Lutheran worship by so-called Lutheran pastors who line their bookshelves with management theory and Baptist books from Fuller Seminary's own bookstore. The revenue from Fuller's bookstore is probably larger than the GNP of most developing nations.