The UU Church-Rockford, IL

Unclench: Letting Go of Fear and Worry

Every day, I see people and communities paralyzed by fear and worry.  Folks who dream big dreams for themselves, folks who want to live differently, folks who want to open their heart and their life, but are too afraid of the bad things that might happen—sometimes with good reason, or painful past experience.  Reflections on forgiveness, courage, and letting go so we can go on.

Why Our Hospitality Must Be Radical

It’s not too hard to be hospitable to folks who are just like us. But to reach out to someone whose life, ideas, and identity is different from our own takes a higher level of intentionality. We have to go to the root of our common humanity. Radical means “of the root.”

Being Human: From Loneliness to Communion

We long to connect with others, but we can be unsure about how, and fearful about vulnerability.  Through the practice of radical hospitality, we can open our heart so that we can move from loneliness to connection and community.

Journey Home

Welcome home.  As we kick-off another church and school year, we’ll celebrate the journey and the home base that makes journey possible.

Being Human: Service

We have within us a desire to serve - to make the world better, to give back, to do something of meaning.  We can sometimes be overwhelmed by the need or the work.  How do we find the balance between our desire to serve and the weight of the need?  How can we make of our lives service that matters?

Nerve

August 12

10:00 a.m.

Nerve

The Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson-Doyle

Edwin Friedman, the scholar of human and family systems, has written about how the crisis in leadership in our age is “a failure of nerve.” Others, like Ronald Heifetz, have echoed this in their writing about leadership - that leaders lack the courage to imagine new ideas and carry them through; and that our hyper-reactivity is damaging the essential capacity for leadership. We’ll reflect together on the subject of “nerve” and what it takes to lead in our age and our place.

Relationships as Spiritual Practice

Relationships as Spiritual Practice

The Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson-Doyle

Mostly what we human beings do is be with others.  Relationships with others often provoke, need and develop things like love, patience, hope, and self-forgetting for the sake of something greater than our own ego.  These are spiritual things.  We’ll talk about friendship, marriage, children and parents and siblings, and such things.

Being Human: Awake

The July 8, 2012 sermon from the Unitarian Universalist Church, Rockford, IL

Our July theme is spiritual practice. This sermon re-introduces spiritual practice as core disciplines for modern day Unitarian Universalists. What they are and why do they matter. We’ll explain.

Doing the Good

Doing the Good The Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson-Doyle Reflections on the good life, and how to live it.  What does it take to do the good?  How do we overcome the challenges - ambiguity, addiction, adversaries, and the like - which get in the way?

The Problem of Evil

Why is there evil?  Why do bad things happen?  These questions, in part, give rise to religion but they also challenge religion.  And though atheists get to escape some of this problem, they still must respond to this brute fact.  We’ll reflect on the problem of evil and ask whether, given the reality of suffering, life is still a gift.