Celebrant: Rev. Sarah Schurr Lay Leader: Peg Bowers 

The world is full of scary things, from stories of zombies to the reality of change.  Rev. Sarah Schurr will reflect on the role of fear in our lives and how our faith can help us cope.

Speaker: Mike Bonilla   Lay Leader: Cam Leonard

Speaker: Jana Peirce Lay Leader: Lisa Sporleder

 Galen Guengerich, minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City, believes gratitude or should be the defining religious principle of Unitarian Universalism. Adopting gratitude as a discipline—or daily practice—reminds us how utterly dependent we are on the people and world around us for everything that matters. From this flows an ethic of gratitude that obligates us to create a future that justifies a sense of gratitude from the human family and demands that we nurture the world that nurtures us in return. Today we will learn more about the idea of gratitude as a practice and an ethic, nurturing our own sens of awe and obligation.

Lay Leader: Laurel McLaughlin

The annual UUFF support for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee Guest at Your Table program begins on Sunday, November 13, with a multigenerational service.  The UU Service Committee advances human rights and social justice by partnering with citizens around the world, who are challenging oppressive policies in their own countries.  GAYT is the annual information and fund raising in which local congregations participate.

Chalice Circles will be back at UUFF starting this January – and they’ll be better than ever. It doesn’t matter if you have done Chalice Circles before.  We have created a new program that we hope will encourage all UUFF members – new and old alike – to join a Chalice Circle this year for the opportunity to make deeper connections and talk about life’s big questions and the things that matter most to us.

All Chalice Circles will share the same discussion topics and short readings each month, so although we may meet in separate small groups, we will all be part of the same larger conversation. Rather than using a set curriculum, we have chosen a flexible format that can be used to explore many issues and interests. Read on for more details and to sign up…

Speaker: Jenna Hertz  Lay Leader: Pam Miller

Musings on the effects of wild places on our understanding of the interdependent nature of the world, through the eyes of a twenty-one year old on her first trip to the Arctic Refuge. Jenna Hertz, Program and Events Assistant at Northern Alaska Environmental Center will speak.

 Speaker Hayden Nevill Lay Leader: Frida Shroyer

Michael Servetus was a proto- Unitarian who was burned at the stake as a heretic by John Calvin in 1553. His writings heavily influenced early Unitarian thought beginning in Transylvania and Poland and ultimately influencing early English and American Unitarian movements.

Speakers/Lay Leaders John and Jana Peirce

From the “Happiness Hypothesis” of positive psychology to the “World Database of Happiness” (started by a Dutch “Professor of Happiness Studies”), the causes and conditions of human happiness have lately become a subject of scientific study. Join us this Sunday as we explore some recent findings from the field of happiness research, including these and other questions: What makes us happy? Where does happiness come from? Are some countries happier than others? Should we expect happiness?

Lay Leader:  Jeanne Olson  Speaker: Phil Loring

Why do you eat local? For health reasons? Social reasons? Ethical reasons? Dr. Phil Loring, an anthropologist at UAF, will speak on the facts and fallacies that surround local food movements, especially those fallacies that have opened those movements to criticism. He will then talk about how the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism offer a template for action that can keep you, and your local food community, on track toward real social change.

Celebrant: Rev. Sarah Schurr  Lay Leader: Doug Toelle

One historic Unitarian theologian and one modern pop star; they both speak to us of the nature of the human being.