June’s Ministry Theme is Renewal
Join us in-person and online on Sundays at 10:30 am. All are welcome! We as Unitarian Universalists in Santa Monica look forward to being with you.
COVID Update May 2023: The congregation’s Pandemic Policies and Protocols were adopted specifically in response to the pandemic. Given that the state of emergency has been lifted, they are no longer in effect. Masks are optional, but always acceptable and welcome. If you or someone in your household is not feeling well or have tested positive for COVID, please stay home; you can still join us via our Facebook or YouTube live-stream worship.
Parking at the UCLA parking structure at 1311 16th St. is available to people attending Sunday services. The entrance is from 16th St. between Santa Monica Blvd. and Arizona Ave., on the SE corner of Arizona and 16th; ask the attendant for a UUSM parking permit to place on your dashboard. For those with a handicap parking tag, several spaces are also available onsite, via the alley west of 18th St., as well as in the UCLA structure.
Worship Online: We livestream our service from the sanctuary. Join us by clicking the WATCH NOW button above where the video is live every week beginning at 10:20 am, or watch on YouTube or Facebook. You don’t need to have a YouTube or Facebook account, or be logged in, to watch the service. You do have to be logged in to comment and chat with other members of the congregation.
Explore past services on our Sermons page, available 24/7. Tune in anytime to catch up and worship with your community. We encourage you to light a chalice or candle at home, mediate, and sing along.
Sunday Worship: Queering Life
Sanctuary 1260 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA, United StatesQueering Life. Rev. Jeremiah Lal Shahbaz Kalendae, preaching; Dr. Susan Hendricks Richman, worship associate. Our congregation made history when Rev. Ernie Pipes blessed a queer marriage in 1959! We've come a long way in the subsequent six decades with Unitarian Universalist congregations often leading the queer liberation movement while other religious traditions remained oppressive. There is still much to be accomplished in our time as we continue to queer life on our journey of collective liberation for all. Join us for worship in-person and online.
Sunday Worship: What’s Your Mission?
Sanctuary 1260 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA, United StatesWhat's Your Mission? Rev. Dr. Kikanza Nuri-Robins, preaching; Cassie Winters, Worship Associate. Strategic planning is a process that most organizations use to clarify their values, affirm their mission, and align their work with their values. What if people did the same thing? Routinely? When was the last time you assessed the WHY of your existence? What might result from an intentional walk into your future? Join us for worship in-person and online.
Sunday Worship: We Are Grateful!
Sanctuary 1260 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA, United StatesRev. Jeremiah Lal Shahbaz Kalendae, preaching; Rev. Dr. Kikanza Nuri-Robins, worship associate. Beloved Community in the liberal religious tradition is what we are all called to nurture with our time, talents, resources, and loving care. Join us for our annual service celebrating our volunteer leaders from across the life of the congregation and our professional staff. We have accomplished much and work remains as we live further into our ideal for ourselves, our congregation, and our world. Join us for worship in-person and online. Our Annual Meeting of the Congregation will follow the service and all are encouraged to attend.
Sunday Worship: Weaving Our Lives
Sanctuary 1260 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA, United StatesRev. Jeremiah Lal Shahbaz Kalendae and Cassie Winters will welcome you in our Sanctuary.
We are all tangled up together in a great web of life that is woven with beauty and hardship, love and loss, thriving and struggle. How do we tend well to the weaving so that all of us are held in care? Join us for this special annual service livestreamed from our national Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly. Join us for worship in-person and online.
The UUA Office of the President, Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, is pleased to announce that Rev. Molly Housh Gordon, will lead the Sunday Service at General Assembly 2024.
Rev. Molly is the minister of the UU Church of Columbia, Missouri, where she is currently suing the state of Missouri for their unconstitutional abortion ban alongside 13 other multi-faith clergy co-plaintiffs. She is passionate about red-state UU ministry, community organizing, and mutual aid.
Sunday Worship: Heaven Help Us
Sanctuary 1260 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA, United StatesRev. Dr. Kikanza Nuri-Robins, preaching; Cassie Winters, worship associate. Heaven and Hell are often used to describe what happens after life. This morning we will explore the idea of an afterlife and why it is so important to some people. The question to ponder is this: How does your understanding of Afterlife, inform your Daily Living? Join us for worship in-person and online.
June Generous Congregation Recipient:
National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE)
Our practice here at UUSM is to dedicate half of our non-pledge Sunday offerings to support the life of our church and the other 50% to organizations doing work in the world that advances our Unitarian Universalist principles. This month we’ll share our Sunday Offering with the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE).
NCTE is a national social justice organization devoted to ending discrimination and violence against transgender people through education and advocacy on national issues of importance to transgender people. By empowering transgender people and their allies to educate and influence policymakers and others, this nonprofit facilitates a strong and clear voice for transgender equality in our nation’s capital and around the country. In January 2024, Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) announced that they will be merging with the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) to form a new organization, Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE). The merger is in process.
Thank you for your generous support of our beloved community and the National Center for Transgender Equality. To give $10 right now, text “$10 GCC” (or another amount) to 844-982-0209. (One-time-only credit card registration required.) Or visit uusm.org/donate.
June 2024 Theme: Renewal
Our Soul Matters theme invites us to consider the Renewal of our world, our communities, and our lives.
Space for Breath
We light this chalice to remember
that it is good to make space for breath,
that work is not the measure of worthiness,
that filling one’s life to the brim
leaves no room
for grace and surprise to slip in.
Welcome friends, let us make space and be renewed. ~ Rev. Scott Tayler, Permission Secured by Soul Matters
A Protest and a Party (For pride month)
People sometimes ask: Is Pride a protest
Or a party? And the answer is
Of course
Yes… ~ Rev. Hannah Roberts Villnave Full piece
Father’s Day in Our Imperfect World
On this Father’s Day, like all the others, we are here again reflecting on all the complexities of relationship,
the paradoxes that challenge the simplicity of our understandings.
My father, angry and gentle; justice seeking and prosecutorial; ally and abandoning.
Raised in poverty but possessing the wealth of experience, the gifts of friendships, the tenacity of spirit.
Superman when he placed his arm between a dog’s bared teeth and my five-year-old face.
The advocate when he escorted a guest from our home after a racist word had been used and defended.
The criticizer when he felt the need to see my mother’s contributions as less than his own.
On Father’s Day may we see all that they truly are. The greatness and the grist.
May we feel the strength they gave to us.
May we repair any wounds remaining.
May we carry forth their dreams for us. ~ Rev. Margo Rinehart, Permission Secured by Soul Matters
On Celebrating the Renewal Rooted in Juneteenth
Juneteenth has never been a celebration of victory, or an acceptance of the way things are. It’s a celebration of progress. It’s an affirmation that despite the most painful parts of our history, change is possible—and there is still so much work to do. ~ Barack Obama
On Renewing Our Commitment to & Love of the World
Anyone can slay a dragon, she told me, but try waking up every morning & loving the world all over again. That’s what takes a real hero. ~ Brian Andreas
On the Renewal of Solitude
So often I assume that I am indispensable… Even if my body and spirit are asking for a break… But if I power through, I am not leaving room for guidance of the spirit. ~ Rev. Darcey Laine, Living in Spirit: I’m Tired
On Rest as An Act of Resistance
There is deep power in taking a break, honoring your body and actively participating in your deprogramming from grind culture. We have been brainwashed to be violent towards our own bodies by pushing it to exhaustion… Rest is a form of resistance because it disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy. Both of these toxic systems refuse to see the inherent divinity of human beings and have used human bodies as a tool for production, evil and violence for centuries. Grind culture has made us into human machines, willing and ready to donate our lives to a capitalist system that thrives by placing profit over people. ~ Tricia Hersey, Rest is Resistance
“Hersey argues that, for Black people in America, napping is nothing short of a revolutionary act. It’s such a rare sight, in fact, that she had trouble finding images for the slideshow that plays behind her as she delivers her sermons…” Article/Interview – It’s a Right, Not a Privilege: The Napping Resistance Movement
Article II Purpose and Covenant: Final Proposal by the Article II Study Commission
Unitarian Universalist Association UUA Article II Proposal – for consideration and vote at the 2024 virtual General Assembly, June 20-24
Article II Shared Values Flower Image created by Tanya Webster
Our service in the world continues.
