Sermon delivered by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor on April 2, 2017. Reflecting on a “spirituality of imperfection,” Rev. Taylor looks to the wisdom of the recovery movement which has a lot to teach us about the process of transformation.
The theme for April is what it means to be a community of transformation. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website.
Sermon delivered by Intern Minister Kellie Kelly on March 26, 2017. Unitarian Universalism calls us to our best selves and to our highest aspirations, our seven Principles. Kellie explores the "riskiness" of our first Principle: the inherent worth and dignity of every person.
The theme for March is what it means to be a community of risk. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website.
Sermon delivered by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor on March 19, 2017. What do you do when your wider community, your nation, and your mental health are all in a precarious position? Rev. Taylor reflects on the prevalence of mental disorders and the need to cultivate a community of understanding and compassion.
The theme for March is what it means to be a community of risk. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website.
Sermon delivered by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor on March 12, 2017. What is the difference between a tourist and a traveler when it comes to a spiritual community? What journeys do conscience and spirit call us to? Rev. Alan Taylor reflects on that crucial role of the church: providing spiritual grounding for engaging the world.
The theme for March is what it means to be a community of risk. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website.
Sermon delivered by Minister of Faith Development Rev. Emily Gage on March 5, 2017. And here is the thing: sometimes the ideas you have and the things you do seem dangerous to other people. And so sometimes they try and stop you from sharing those ideas or living those actions. Sometimes--depending on the time and the place--you become a risk taker because of who you are and what you believe and how you act on that.
The theme for March is what it means to be a community of risk. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website.
Sermon delivered by Community Minister Rev. Scott Aaseng on February 26, 2017. Rev. Aaseng says that we can keep on having half-conversations about who’s right and who’s wrong and further feed the brokenness that threatens to tear us apart. Or we can see each other as part of a larger We – a We that is broken, but a We that is in this brokenness together.
Rev. Aaseng was a musician, a community activist, and a Lutheran pastor (among other things) prior to discovering his call to Unitarian Universalist ministry.
Scott graduated from the St. Olaf Paracollege with a degree in Peace Studies, and spent a year studying and traveling in South Africa during the apartheid years. He volunteered as a teacher in rural Tanzania, before returning to the U.S. and earning his M.Div. at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He interned at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, and served a small Lutheran congregation on the southwest side of Chicago for five years in the early 1990’s.
He left ordained ministry to become primary caregiver for his two daughters, while becoming project director and then grant-writer for the Southwest Youth Collaborative, a community-based youth organization he helped found. He also served as musician for a number of church gospel choirs, and went on to serve as Village Musician at Holden Village, a Lutheran retreat center in the mountains of Washington state. Upon returning to Chicago in 2005, he became a project assistant with American Friends Service Committee, coordinating a nationally touring display of combat boots and civilian shoes showing the human cost of war. He also began attending Third Unitarian Church in Chicago with his family.
Becoming a musician at Third Unitarian in 2009 re-awakened his call to ministry, now more clearly grounded in Unitarian Universalism. He took classes at both Starr King and Meadville Lombard seminaries, completed his internship at Unity Temple, and went on to serve as Unity Temple’s first Assistant Minister for Social Justice. He has since served as part-time Consulting Minister at the Unitarian Church of Quincy, Illinois and at First Unitarian Church of Hobart, Indiana. He now serves as Director of the Unitarian Universalist Advocacy Network of Illinois.
Scott has lived on the west side of Chicago for 20 years with his spouse, Gale Holmlund, and their two teenage daughters, Sunniva and Brita. He enjoys bicycling, playing piano, being outdoors, and traveling with his family.
The theme for February is what it means to be a community of identity. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website.
Sermon delivered by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor on February 19, 2017. Albert Einstein said, “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.” What kind of religion is Einstein talking about? One similar to that of his contemporary, Unitarian minister A. Powell Davies who said, “The world is now too dangerous for anything but the truth and too small for anything but [love].”
The theme for February is what it means to be a community of identity. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website.
Sermon delivered by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor on February 12, 2017. Audre Lorde wrote, “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate our differences.” As Unitarian Universalists, we are prone to minimizing differences among us. But our faith, at its best, calls us to cultivate integrity and claim who we really are as individuals and live not only an undivided life but cultivate an undivided community.
The theme for February is what it means to be a community of identity. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website.
Sermon delivered by Minister of Faith Development Rev. Emily Gage on February 5, 2017. “Exactly” says Dumbledore, “ It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. It is our choices, I would venture to say, that make us strengthen and shape our own abilities. What are the new choices we are making right now as the world cries out for us even more loudly? Do they reflect what we believe and who we are or who we want to be?
The theme for February is what it means to be a community of identity. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website.
Sermon delivered by Senior Minister Rev. Alan Taylor on January 29, 2017. Rev. Taylor prophetically addresses our nation’s current crisis, calling us all to use our voices, drawing from the wisdom of Audre Lorde and living into the call of James Luther Adams: "The prophetic liberal church is the church in which all members share the responsibility to attempt to foresee the consequences of human behavior (both individual and institutional) with the intention of making history, in place of merely being pushed around by it. Only through the prophethood of all believers can we together foresee doom and mend our common ways.”
The theme for January is what it means to be a community of prophecy. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website.