Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, September 18, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, September 11, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, September 4, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, August 28, 2022.

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

“The Tasks of Life”
Sunday, September 18, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

What is the purpose of a life, of life. It's always been the question religion was tasked to answer. Part of the work of answering that question involves the tasks of life, of each life and even its stages of tasks. As we step into a new church year perhaps we can ask where we think we are in this work so each of us can step intentionally, and more deeply, into that work.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Carmen Barsody, Worship Associate; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; UUSF Choir; Mark Sumner, Music Director; Claudine Jones, Mezzo; Jon Silk, Drummer; Wm García Ganz, Pianist

Shulee Ong, Camera; Jackson Munn, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Thomas Brown, Sexton; Kelvin Jones, Sexton; Athena Papadakos, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

This message was delivered on Sunday, September 18, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Randy Lewis in the 10 am service. Description: Our lives are made up of stories. Every day we are telling stories to ourselves about ourselves and others. Stories about what will happen to us in the future, and who we were in the past. Some of these stories define us, for better or worse, but how do we know they are true? What if we want to break out of an old story? What if we want to write a new one? It is so crucial when we are writing stories about ourselves and our world that we are compassionate. We never know what other people have been through or what is in their hearts now, and we often negate or forget parts ourselves — the difficult parts we might want to gloss over as well as the beautiful parts of us that we sometimes struggle to embrace. SUBSCRIBE TO WATCH OTHER VIDEOS: WANT TO LISTEN? SUBSCRIBE TO AUDIO PODCAST:  GIVE A DONATION TO HELP US SPREAD THIS LOVE BEYOND BELIEF: or text LOVEBB to 73256 LET'S CONNECT: Facebook: Instagram: All Souls Church Website:

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

“The River of Life: An Ingathering”

Sunday, September 11, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

This week is a joyous regathering: virtually and in person we will come back together for our official start to a church year. Children will join us in worship and we will sing and speak in words and ritual of our journeys apart and what we bring back with us.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Rev. Laura Shennum, Minister of Congregational Life; Sam King, Worship Associate; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; Wm. García Ganz, Pianist; Nancy Munn, soprano soloist; UUSF Choir; Mark Sumner, Music Director

Shulee Ong, Camera; Jackson Munn, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Kelvin Jones, Sexton; Athena Papadakos, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

This message was delivered on Sunday, September 11, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Rev. Dr. Marlin Lavanhar in The Point Humanist Hour service. Description: As the world continues to open back up following the COVID-19 pandemic, we are all left to reckon with everything we have been putting off.  That might mean something literal like getting married, or switching jobs, or maybe it's something simultaneously more abstract and closer to home for us, like feeling our feelings.  We often live our lives attempting to buffer difficult feelings — to insulate ourselves from the uncertainties and pain that life brings.  But we not only fail to stop pain, we also numb our joy when we do this.  What would it look like if we decided not to buffer these experiences, but to embrace them? SUBSCRIBE TO WATCH OTHER VIDEOS: WANT TO LISTEN? SUBSCRIBE TO AUDIO PODCAST: GIVE A DONATION TO HELP US SPREAD THIS LOVE BEYOND BELIEF: or text LOVEBB to 73256 LET'S CONNECT: Facebook: Instagram: All Souls Church Website:  

“Birthing a New World”
Sunday, September 4, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

For our annual Labor Day service, Rev. Millie Phillips celebrates a struggle that ebbs and flows, but has never died; the struggle for economic survival and dignity on the job. Playing off the multiple meanings of the word "labor," do we have the courage to do what it takes to give birth to " a new world from the ashes of the old?" Whatever the obstacles, increasingly, working people, especially young and marginalized workers, are rediscovering the power of union organizing and are putting the movement back into the labor movement.

Rev. Millie Phillips, Guest Minister; Dennis Adams, Worship Associate; The Labor Heritage/Rockin' Solidarity Chorus; Pat Wynne, Labor Chorus Director; Mark Sumner, Pianist; Ben Rudiak-Gould, Songleader

Shulee Ong, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Kelvin Jones, Sexton; Amy Kelly, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

This message was delivered on Sunday, September 4, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Carlton D. Pearson in The Point Humanist Hour service. Description: Our imaginations are our gateway into our worlds. Our past, present, and future all has to go through an interpretive lens that we get to choose. We always have the opportunity to reimagine our relationships to ourselves and each other, and to imagine a different world that maybe just doesn't exist yet. Sometimes when we feel stuck in our own lives or in the stories others have about us, it's time to imagine a new story about ourselves... a story with an unwritten ending. SUBSCRIBE TO WATCH OTHER VIDEOS: WANT TO LISTEN? SUBSCRIBE TO AUDIO PODCAST: GIVE A DONATION TO HELP US SPREAD THIS LOVE BEYOND BELIEF: or text LOVEBB to 73256 LET'S CONNECT: Facebook: Instagram: All Souls Church Website:

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

“The Arc of the Universe”
Sunday, August 28, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

August 28th is the 59th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Racial Equality. Its keynote address by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. has become the most famous speech in modern history. Echoed in his remarks that day were the paraphrased words of an early Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker; that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice.

Earlier this summer, the remarkable achievement of the Webb telescope began challenging humanity to look deeply into the past in order to make sense of today and what is to come. Indeed, in so many ways, we won't ever create the future of our dreams without understanding the past.

Join us as we explore Dr. King's inspiration in the words of a radical Boston minster, how those words convinced a cultural icon to continue to go "where no man had gone before" and finally, how we're learning, through science, that there is indeed an arc in the universe and that it bends towards truth.

Richard Davis-Lowell, Guest Preacher; Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Katrina Walter, Flautist; Charmian Stewart, Violinist; Nancy Munn, Pianist; Richard Fey, Songleader

Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Kelvin Jones, Sexton; Amy Kelly, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

This message was delivered on Sunday, August 28, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Randy Lewis in The Point Humanist Hour service. Description: What does it mean to have emotional intelligence, and how might we increase it? Why would we even want to? This Sunday, Randy Lewis explores what it means to practice kindness as a serious business that has consequences in our own lives and those around us. But in order to this, it's important to be transparent with ourselves about how we really feel about the people around us. By internally addressing what we really think, we can slowly change our thought patterns into something truly helpful. SUBSCRIBE TO WATCH OTHER VIDEOS: WANT TO LISTEN? SUBSCRIBE TO AUDIO PODCAST: GIVE A DONATION TO HELP US SPREAD THIS LOVE BEYOND BELIEF:  or text LOVEBB to 73256 LET'S CONNECT: Facebook: Instagram: All Souls Church Website:

“Transforming Perfection”

Sunday, August 21, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

This Sunday, join Guest Preacher Charlotte Cramer exploring the concept of perfection and how it influences our lives and society. Perfection is everywhere in our country, and it has impacted how we treat one another and ourselves. What is the mindset and healing that is needed to work against the strong drive towards being perfect? How could overcoming perfection foster a more wholesome and healthy life, and society?

Charlotte Maitreya Cramer, Guest Preacher; Sam King, Worship Associate; Asher Davison, Bass Vocals; Larry Chinn, Piano

Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Kelvin Jones, Sexton; Judy Payne, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, August 21, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, August 14, 2022.

This message was delivered on Sunday, August 21, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Rev. Dr. Marlin Lavanhar in The Point Humanist Hour service. Description: Salman Rushdie, who has spoken twice at All Souls in Tulsa, was violently attacked, on stage, last week. One of our congregation’s middle school girls had to be escorted out of a Public School Board meeting this summer by police because adults, wearing red, white and blue, were aggressive and hostile toward her for expressing her view that our schools should support LGBTQ students. Our state has passed laws making it illegal to have an abortion or to teach history that might make someone uncomfortable. College professors, comedians and commentators are being “cancelled” for expressing their perspectives. All Souls stands in a centuries-long religious tradition that has seen God (and the good) in history to be present in the unfolding of freedom. Examples include: the freedom of the Jews, and anyone, from slavery, freedom of Christians to worship, freedom of scientists, freedom of speech, freedom to marry and more. What’s happening to freedom and what have our forebears done before and what should we do now about it? SUBSCRIBE TO WATCH OTHER VIDEOS: WANT TO LISTEN? SUBSCRIBE TO AUDIO PODCAST: GIVE A DONATION TO HELP US SPREAD THIS LOVE BEYOND BELIEF: or text LOVEBB to 73256 LET'S CONNECT: Facebook: Instagram: All Souls Church Website:

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, August 7, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, July 31, 2022.

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

This message was delivered on Sunday, August 14, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Rev. Dr. Marlin Lavanhar in The Point Humanist Hour service. Description: How are you feeling right now? Happy, anxious, depressed, or maybe even numb? Or perhaps there is a fear or uncertainty of what will happen when we really let our feelings reach the surface. Sometimes we aren't even aware of what we're feeling, but it still follows us. This Sunday, Rev. Marlin explores what it means to become aware of our own awareness. Reflecting on his time on sabbatical, Marlin encourages us to pay more attention to what we pay attention to, and in that space we will find a rich quality of life that is worth it. SUBSCRIBE TO WATCH OTHER VIDEOS: https://www.youtube.com/user/allsoulsunitarian WANT TO LISTEN? SUBSCRIBE TO AUDIO PODCAST: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-souls-unitarian-church/id193096943   GIVE A DONATION TO HELP US SPREAD THIS LOVE BEYOND BELIEF: http://www.allsoulschurch.org/GIVE or text LOVEBB to 73256 LET'S CONNECT: Facebook: Instagram: All Souls Church Website:

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

This message was delivered on Sunday, August 7, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Rev. Barbara Prose Description: "One expression I will take with me when I leave All Souls is 'I appreciate you.' It’s one of the ways I’ve learned to say thank you here. Those words express that what someone just did or said—or simply who they are—makes a difference in my life and in the life of the church. Now, if I were to try to thank each and every one of you individually, our Sunday service would last all weekend and still be incomplete. Much as author AJ Jacobs discovered when he tried to thank every person involved with his morning cup of coffee, I’ve discovered that each and every act of generosity, kindness, and service, is linked to at least 1000 other acts of service, kindness and generosity. So I need your help. And am inviting you to attend church this Sunday, so you can thank people too – and be thanked yourself!"

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, July 24, 2022.

This message was delivered on Sunday, July 31, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Rev. Tamara Lebak Description: Maybe there is a part of you that wants to come to church and a part of you that wants to stay home. Maybe there is a part of you that wants to flee the country and a part of you that wants to firmly plant yourself in the resistance. Maybe there is a part of you who is skeptical of everything and a part of you that has experienced something truly mystical in nature. I certainly have all of these parts. What does it mean that we have these parts? How do we balance the tension between our polarized parts? How do we navigate respecting all the parts of ourselves to take our next right step? Join me as I explore the respect through the construct of multiplicity of self, an indigenous concept that has been pathologized by academia and demonized by the culture of the Christian church.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, July 17, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, July 10, 2022.

This message was delivered on Sunday, July 24, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Carlton D. Pearson. Description: What does it mean to become more inclusive toward ourselves? As we venture into radical inclusivity, sometimes we are surprised to find old parts of our stories coming back to make us feel guilt, shame, or self-loathing that we thought we had left behind. This Sunday, Carlton explores what it means to move past a kind of militaristic kind of love and step into a more compassionate and real form of *liking* ourselves.

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

“Coffee in the Desert”

Sunday, July 17, 10:50 am, Worship Service

A sermon on welcome -- on the sacred value of welcome. This is a sermon I preached as one of my first five years ago at UUSF and the foundation holds. But there are insights too about what this virtue asks of us, brought to light in the conversations out of the racial reckoning of the last two years or more.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Carmen Barsody, Worship Associate; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; Richard Fey, Baritone; Wm. García Ganz, Accompanist; Ben Rudiak-Gould, Songleader

Shulee Ong, Camera; Eric Shackelford, Camera; Tyler Heston, Sound; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Kelvin Jones, Sexton; Amy Kelly, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

“The Living Tradition”
Sunday, July 10, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

Rev. Mr. Barb reflects on 51 years of practicing Unitarian Universalism. Oh how we have (and have not) changed. Imagine with Barb as he shares his dreams for our next 51 years.

Rev. Mr. Barb Greve, Guest Minister; Lucy Smith, Worship Associate; Larry Chinn, Pianist; Richard Fey, Songleader

Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Jackson Munn, Camera; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Kelvin Jones, Sexton; Amy Kelly, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

This message was delivered on Sunday, July 17, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Cory Lovell. Description: We are living through times that will ask more of us and challenge our faith in ways we never imagined but now can't possibly ignore. The values of Unitarian Universalism call upon us to be compassionate, innovative, and steadfast even amidst such unpredictability. By rooting ourselves in respect for our tradition's past, respect for the sobering and complicated reality of our present, and respect for a more hopeful future... we can meet the moment with love and courage.

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

This message was delivered on Sunday, July 10, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Randy Lewis. Description: This Sunday, Randy Lewis explores what it means to try to love another person when we don't even know what it means to love ourselves. The golden rule tells us to "do unto other as we would have done unto us," but many people treat themselves with no love at all. Through growing in our self-love, we become strong to love others beyond belief.

This message was delivered on Sunday, July 3, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Barbara Prose. Description: Our country stands on the edge of a precipice. It feels impossible that on the weekend that our nation celebrates its 246th birthday, some of the freedoms and rights we hold dear have been taken away and other rights and freedom are so vulnerable. In these extraordinary and urgent times, we declare that we dissent. Those who pursue authoritarian forms of power also provoke violence, spread disinformation, politicize independent institutions, corrupt elections and target vulnerable or marginalized communities. Voices of people in Oklahoma who are not being represented by local or national leaders must be heard across our nation as we insist on the importance of the separation between church and state and share our understanding of a God who always stands on the side of freedom and equality.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, July 3, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, June 26, 2022.

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

"The Perfect Body and the Ladder"
Sunday, July 3, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

"The Perfect Body and the Ladder" is about the personal and the political uses of the body, timed perfectly to rebroadcast as we prepare to unveil our sweet bodies in the lighter clothes and freedom of summer. It's a lovely service and we invite you to sit with the questions it raises and the invitation to include our bodies (and others') in the deepest work of honoring and cherishing.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Meg McGuire, Ministerial Intern; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; Leandra Ramm, Songleader; Brielle Marina Neilson, Songleader; Ben Rudiak-Gould, Songleader; Asher Davison, Songleader; Luis Maurer, Pianist

Eric Shackelford, camera; Shulee Ong, camera; Jonathan Silk, AV remix ; Sam King, chat moderator; Tom Brookshire, Les James, Ralph Fenn, Zoom Coffee Hour; Athena Papadakos, Flowers

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

This message was delivered on Sunday, June 29, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Randy Lewis. Description: This Sunday, Randy Lewis, Sabbatical Minister reflects on the enduring meaning of LBGTQ Pride in America and in his own life, and leads us to think more dynamically about cultural progress in our current age, when the Supreme Court has just overturned Roe v. Wade and many other crucial civil liberties are either absent or threatened. The civil rights era never ended.

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, June 19, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, June 12, 2022.

What is Fatherhood?
Sunday, June 19, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

How can you form an opinion on it if you don’t know what it is? Fatherhood is essentially an elegant idea. You can’t buy it, hold it in your hands or taste it. It is a no-thing. Please come and explore this elegant idea in community on Father’s Day.

Rev. Fred Rabidoux, Guest Minister; Richard Davis-Lowell, Worship Associate; Alice Sobze, Guest Speaker; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; Nancy Munn, Soprano; Wm. García Ganz, Pianist

Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Dan Barnard, Facilities Manager; Judy Payne, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Rev. Chris Jimmerson's sermon delivered on June 19, 2022. In 1989, psychologist and researcher Dr. Carol Ryff developed her six-factor model of psychological well being, which she has updated and many others have validated since. The model focuses on how we might not only cope, but thrive. Might these six factors also apply with our spirituality, as well as to our religious community thriving?

This message was delivered on Sunday, June 19, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa Oklahoma by Carlton D. Pearson. Description This Sunday, on both Father's Day and Juneteenth, Carlton Pearson explores what it means to reckon with our fraught histories surrounding inclusion. Some of us are victims of exclusion — maybe in our own lifetimes, or maybe through our inherited histories, such as native black Americans that are descended from slavery. Maybe we ourselves have excluded others in our pasts. This Sunday, Carlton seeks a way to let go of our stories that no longer serve us while also seeking full disclosure of our painful pasts.

This message was delivered on Sunday, June 12, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Rev. Barbara Prose, Executive Director of Ministry in The Point Humanist Hour Service. Description: This Sunday, Rev. Barbara reflects on the chaotic moment we are living in and asked the question, "Is peace even possible right now?" What would it look like for us to choose peace at a moment like this, and should we? Channeling Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, Rev. Barbara explores an active understanding of peace that empowers us toward change rather than neutralizes us in the face of danger. Instead of waging war, we can wage peace!

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

"I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together"
Sunday, June 12, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

Join us for a joyous good-bye celebration for Rev. Alyson Jacks who is retiring this June. We'll share stories, salutations and some surprises too. There will be wonderful music by our church and bell choir, percussionist Allen Biggs, pianist Lucas Keeley, and our organist Reiko Lane. Let's celebrate and be glad for this incredible time we've had together.

This is a family friendly service for ages 6 and up. Childcare for children 0-5 will be available that morning, Following the service, there will be a luncheon celebration in the courtyard.

Rev. Alyson Jacks, Associate Minister; Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Mari Magaloni Ramos, Worship Associate; Cal Ball, Offertory Sentence; Bell Choir led by Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; Allen Biggs, Percussionist; Lucas Keely, Pianist; UUSF Choir led by Mark Sumner, Music Director

Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Jackson Munn, Camera; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Kelvin Jones, Sexton; Athena & Max Papadakos, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Rev. Chris Jimmerson's sermon delivered on June 12, 2022. How might we express a Unitarian Universalist concept of a blessing? How might we be blessings for one another? What are the blessings to be found in day-to-day living? We will explore these questions and more as we discover how me might celebrate our blessing that may be greater than we often realize.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, June 5, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, May 29, 2022.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson's sermon delivered on June 5, 2022. While change be difficult sometimes, it is also ever present in our lives. Out of change and even loss, we so often find enhanced faith, greater resilience, and creative renewal. Out of it, new beginnings emerge. We will engage in a ritual of faith and renewal.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, May 22, 2022.

"Finding Out Who We Are"
Sunday, June 5, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

This is a service of stories and songs for these times -- drawn from graduation speeches, spiritual reflections on place and community, hymns -- a reminder of who we are.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Rev. Alyson Jacks, Associate Minister; Daniel Jackoway, Worship Associate; Nancy Hardies & Judith Stoddard, Membership; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; UUSF Choir led by Mark Sumner, Music Director; Elliott Etzkorn, Pianist

Shulee Ong, Camera; Jackson Miunn, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Dan Barnard, Facilities Manager; Athena Papadakos, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

"Remembering the Future"

Sunday, May 29, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

War continues to rage in the Ukraine and elsewhere, and, on top of everything else we are facing, nuclear Armageddon increasingly feels like a realistic fear. Memorial Day was started as Decoration Day to honor Union soldiers who died in the Civil War, through drawing upon memorial traditions in both the North and South. On this Memorial Day weekend, let us meditate on past, present, and future war. What does it mean to remember the dead while continuing a global practice that guarantees more dead to remember in the future?

Rev. Millie Phillips, Guest Minister; Mari Magaloni, Worship Associate; Richard Fey, Song Leader; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist

Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Kelvin Jones, Sexton; Carrie Steere-Salazar, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on May 29, 2022. In this intergenerational service we celebrate the traditional Unitarian ceremony of flower communion. We remember its origins as a vivid resistance to Nazi oppression. We bid farewell to Rev. Meg Barnhouse as she retires.

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

“The Nike Solution”
Sunday, May 22, 10:50 am, Worship Service

Lately I feel like what we need most is what we have the hardest time doing. It's a rough place to be. And on a Sunday when we celebrate the incredible work of our Small Group Ministry program over so many years, and this last year, it fits perfectly into the story of now. And how to step into the choices and life activities that will heal us and help us to feel whole and wholly alive again!

We will also honor the important leadership of Minister Emerita Rev. Margot Campbell Gross who has served as the spiritual advisor to small group ministries through the years.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Rev. Margot Campbell Gross, Minister Emerita; Gregg Biggs and Millie Phillips, Small Group Ministry Chairs; Dennis Adams, Worship Associate; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; UUSF Choir led by Mark Sumner, Music Director; Ben Rudiak-Gould, Soloist; Wm. García Ganz, Accompanist

Shulee Ong, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Kelvin Jones; Carrie Steere-Salazar, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on May 22, 2022. Making commitments is complicated. Sometimes they are easy and sometimes they are hard to keep. How do we build our self-esteem by doing what we say we are going to do?

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, May 15, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, May 8, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, May 1, 2022.

"A Time of Transition, part II: The Place In Between"
Sunday, May 15, 2022 10:50 am Livestream Worship Service

William Bridges, when he wrote about transitions, didn't just talk about the Endings, though he did name that first stage and all it required. And he didn't talk about the New Beginnings though that also was tender and vital. He talked about this rarely named space in between those two. And all that happens in that space and how it feels and how to step thoughtfully into and through it. This is what we'll talk a little about this Sunday, and you might find the description familiar and relevant to a lot of life at this moment!

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Sam King, Worship Associate; Percussionists Allen Biggs & Tommy Kesecker; Mark Sumner, Music Director

Eric Shackelford, Camera; Shulee Ong, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Dan Barnard, Facilities Manager; Amy Kelly, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Assistant Minister Rev. Chris Jimmerson's sermon delivered on May 15, 2022. We tend to think of beauty as something we experience, but we also are capable of creating it. Nurturing beauty in our lives may be essential to our spiritual well being.

"The Loving and the Letting Go"
Sunday, May 8, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

What it means to parent a 17-year-old is what it means to parent at any age, just more obviously so. The piece about how love is always about letting go and trusting the universe. And all the other hard -- annoyingly wise but hard -- lessons we learn in journeys of love.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Daniel Jackoway, Worship Associate; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; UUSF Choir led by Mark Sumner, Music Director; Jon Silk, Drummer; Wm. García Ganz, Pianist; Richard Fey, Baritone

Eric Shackelford, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Judy Payne, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on May 8, 2022. How do you handle your rage? How do you help others with theirs? How do you deal with anger when it is at someone else, or when it is at the supreme court?

"A Time of Transition"
Sunday, May 1, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

This Sunday we will celebrate our children, youth, and teachers as we wrap up this year’s Sunday School program. We’ll have a special tribute to our incredible volunteers, and our amazing Lead Teachers, Sarah Beth Chionsini, Christine Patch-Lindsay, Marigold Birch, Hilary Buffum and Audrey McDougal. We are also beginning to say our good-byes to our Associate Minister, Rev. Alyson Jacks, who will retire at the end of this church year. We are in a time of change and transition, taking time to say good-bye and preparing for what comes next.

Rev. Alyson Jacks, Associate Minister; Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Richard Davis-Lowell, Worship Associate; UUSF Choir led by Mark Sumner, Music Director; Wm. García Ganz, Accompanist; Elliott Etzkorn, Pianist; Jon Silk, Drummer

Eric Shackelford, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Amy Kelly, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on May 1, 2022. Our covenant of healthy relations says we should speak to each other directly, in an attitude of curiosity and respect. How do we do this best?

In these troubled times, we need to hold fast to traditions to keep us grounded. Join us as the Labyrinth Team hosts the annual Flower Communion followed by a Maypole dance.

Katherine Enyart joined Live Oak in February 2001 and has held many roles at the ... read more.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, April 24, 2022.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, April 17, 2022.

Leonard Jacobson says, “Awakening is about liberating yourself from the prison that is the world of the mind and daring to be here as all that you are.” My life has been about breaking out of the prisons of oppression and daring to be all ... read more.

"Elephant Company: an Earth Day service"

Sunday, April 24, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream

On Earth Day I think our goal is always to connect to the miracle and the mystery and the awesome power and our love for the earth, in part so that we remember in our hearts that we are anchored to the commitment to save earth and care for Her. I have also been thinking of that phrase lately of how the more particular something is, the more universal it is. So rather than talk about the blue-green spinning planet and try and feel love and connection to that, I want to talk about one particular piece of life that’s part of this earth. Let’s talk about elephants.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a sermon on the elephant. Maybe that alone will draw you to church to see how a minister is going to make something spiritual out of the big, plodding, odd looking creature that we know as the pachyderm. Or maybe you just need to be together and sing and sit in silence or light candles. Whatever it is, I’ll see you on Sunday!

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Dennis Adams, Worship Associate; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; Mark Sumner, Songleader; Rita Fabrizio, Flautist & Vocalist; Jill Smith, Guitarist & Vocalist

Shulee Ong, Camera; Donald Shearer, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Judy Payne, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on April 24, 2022. Our covenant of healthy relations calls us to "Welcome and serve by being present with one another through life's transitions" What does it mean to be present with one another? How do we do that?

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Rev. Meg Barnhouse's sermon delivered on April 17, 2022. Inanna, in the Babylonian faith story, goes to the underworld to visit her sister. At every level of the underworld, she is stripped of one more element of her rank and dignity. After three days in the underworld, she returns to the overworld. What does this story have to teach us about loss and resurrection?

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Watct the Meditation:    

“Never What You Imagined”
Easter Sunday, April 17, 10:50 am, Worship Service Livestream
Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister, preaching

This year is one when Passover and Easter land in the same stretch of time and Spring also is claiming the stage. Holding these stories, the rituals of remembering, one thing that strikes me is the fullness of this moment in all the stories of the season. How in them all it is a time of loss and hope, both. How in it all there is this vital readiness that is asked of us, and a reminder that what lies ahead is almost always in the big stories, nothing like what we had imagined.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Rev. Alyson Jacks, Associate Minister; Sam King, Worship Associate; Bell Choir led by Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; Laurel Sprigg, Soprano; UUSF Choir led by Mark Sumner, Music Director

Shulee Ong, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Communications Director; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Kelvin Jones, Sexton; Amy Kelly, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

If “the unexamined life is not worth living,” how does Eastertime encourage us to examine ourselves – to roll away the stones on our hearts – and examine what lies within?

The Rev. Jami Yandle (they/them/theirs) is a non-binary Board Certified Chaplain and will be serving ... read more.

The Spiritual Practice of Showing Up: From trans rights to reproductive justice, voting rights to the environment, this is a crucial time in Texans’ fight for justice and UU values in the world. The Rev. Erin Walter, musician, dance teacher, and new Executive Director of ... read more.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, April 10, 2022.

"An Especially Big and Important Music Service"
Sunday, April 10, Worship Service Livestream

This Sunday, April 10th - after a 25-month delay - and in a follow up to our tribute to Walt Whitman in early December, several choirs return in larger numbers to perform the Dona Nobis Pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams. In addition to having the UC Alumni Chorus join our church choir, we welcome students from the UC Men’s and Women's Chorales at Berkeley as well as a 45 piece orchestra. The pieces are enhanced exponentially with orchestral forces.

These combined choirs seek to honor the souls lost and displaced by the Ukraine invasion with their music. Dona Nobis Pacem was composed in response to the unsettling state of the world in 1936— Vaughan Williams compelled to cry out for peace featuring traditional texts as well as dramatic poetry by none other than Walt Whitman.

Rev. Alyson Jacks, Associate Minister; “Wonder Dave” Crady, Worship Associate; Reiko Oda Lane, Organist; Nancy Munn, soprano; Rene Minneboo, baritone; Orchestra and Choirs led by Mark Sumner, Music Director

Eric Shackelford, Camera; Donald Shearer, Camera; Jonathan Silk, Sound & Final Mixes; Joe Chapot, Live Chat Moderator; Remigio Flood, Sexton; Athena Papadakos, Flowers; Linda Messner, Head Usher; Ralph Fenn, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Assistant Minister Rev. Chris Jimmerson's sermon delivered on April 10, 2022. Many of us are engaged in a lifelong process of awakening to realities that are different than what we were taught. It is a process that can feel liberating and help us awaken to our own, full creative potential. So, why are we witnessing such a backlash against wokeness.

Watch the Service: To enable YouTube provided closed-captioning while viewing the service, click the “CC” icon on the bottom bar of your YouTube video player.    

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, April 3, 2022.