The UU Church-Rockford, IL

06/21/2015: Kindness as a Virtue

Erin Margit Dajka Holley

Growing up, many of us heard about various things as virtues. It was always clear that virtues are good things, but what does virtue actually mean? Join us as we consider the power of practicing virtues, particularly kindness, and what doing so might mean within our hearts, our relationships, and our communities. Does practice make perfect?

Much of the sermon places its focus on the June 17 shootings at the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. 

06/07/2015: The Idolatry of Productivity

Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson

Summer can be an invitation to not try quite so hard all the time. Lessons of the season, the Taoist spiritual path of non-action, and a hard look at our culture of business. 

05/31/2015: The Idolatry of Reason

Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson

Allen Penticoff won the right to choose a sermon topic at last fall's Auction, and selected a book by George Lakoff. Lakoff, a linguist, argues that different political perspectives have not just different opinions, but different ways of thinking. How, then, can we convince each other? To the dismay of liberal rationalists, the answer ins't reason and evidence. But there is another way. 

05/24/2015: The Heart of Us

Schuyler Vogel

Unitarian Universalism is a unique kind of religion, one with a tradition and history all its own. This week we explore what is at the heart of our faith, why it's special, and how we can come to appreciate it more fully.

05/10/2015: Living in the Big Beautiful Tent

Leslie Mills & Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson

Matthew and Leslie, a member of this congregation who is completing he ministerial internship in Minnesota this spring, share the pulpit and reflect together on what it means for Unitarian Universalists to be a people of tradition. What are our traditions and core commitments? Does anything go? We also celebrate a UU tradition: the flower communion. 

05/03/2015: Idolatry: Habit

Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson

As we reflect on what it means to be a people of tradition, we'll think about how habit can both help us and hurt us as we seek to live lives of meaning and purpose.

4/26/2015 Idolatry: Materalism

The first of a long intermittent of sermons on Idolatry - placing on faith in things that are not worthy of such faith.  All of us struggle, sometimes, with too much devotion to things.  As we honor Earth Day, a chance to reflect on the wise place of stuff in our lives. 

04/19/2015: All That Is, Is Holy Part 3/3

Unitarians and Universalists have, in the last generation, created a new sense of "incarnational sacredness." We talk now about see the holy or sacred in every person, all life, the natural world, and in a wide variety of texts, traditions, and arts. But what, really, does this mean? How might we live if we really accepted the idea that revelation is everywhere and everywhen?

04/19/2015: All That Is, Is Holy Part 2/3

Unitarians and Universalists have, in the last generation, created a new sense of "incarnational sacredness." We talk now about seeing the holy or sacred in every person, all life, the natural world, and in a wide variety of texts, traditions, and arts. But what, really, does this mean? How might we live if we really accepted the idea that revelation is everywhere and everywhen?

04/19/2015: All That Is, Is Holy Part 1/3

Unitarians and Universalists have, in the last generation, created a new sense of "incarnational sacredness." We talk now about seeing the holy or sacred in every person, all life, the natural world, and in a wide variety of texts, traditions, and arts. But what, really, does this mean? How might we live if we really accepted the idea that revelation is everywhere and everywhen?