June’s Ministry Theme is Flourishing Together

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.

Masks are optional, but always acceptable and welcome. If you or someone in your household is not feeling well or has 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 free 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, meditate, and sing along. 

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Generous Congregation Recipient: Advocates for Trans Equality

We come together for more than ourselves. This month, half of our Sunday offerings will go to Advocates for Trans Equality. Their lawyers and policy experts are on the front lines of this fight, and they need our support. 

Our practice here at UUSM is to dedicate half of our non-pledge Sunday Offering to organizations doing work in the world that advances our Unitarian Universalist principles; the other 50% of the offering is used to support the life of our church. 

In 2024, two leading national trans civil rights organizations, National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) merged together as one organization. A4TE builds on their successes to boldly imagine a world where trans people live our lives joyfully and without barriers. A4TE policy experts, litigators, and community organizers work at all levels of government to ensure trans voices are not only heard, but embraced in rooms where they’ve long been ignored. As a trans-led nonprofit, they also help their community navigate the realities of law and policy through vital tools, knowledge, and services. 

Please consider supporting the mission of our church and of A4TE. To give right now, text “$20 GCC” to 844-982-0209. (One-time-only credit card registration required.) Or visit Make a Donation at uusm.org and reference Generous Congregation. Thank you.

 

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June 2026 Theme: Flourishing Together

Our theme this month invites us to consider our world, our community, and our lives in the light of the practice of Flourishing Together. What if we can approach our daily lives, our community, our world with how people can do more than endure and survive? How about fostering luxuriant growth, enhancing hope, and nurturing kindness? Together we can do that! 

To not carry this life alone… 
We come from different homes, different paths, different worries and hopes. But we come to this same space, for the same reason: to remember that we do not have to carry this life alone. Here, we learn to flourish together, by choosing, again and again, to show up for one another. Welcome. Let us worship together. ~ Rev. Michelle Collins

The Central Task Of The Religious Community
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice. It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed. ~ Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed, Reading #580 in Singing the Living Tradition 

Tending the Flame, Lighting the Way Together (Responsive Reading) 
In such stormy times, our own lights may waver,
or at times even go out.
So we gather around the flaming chalice,
The symbol of our faith, to kindle our flames once more.
     Tending the flame, lighting the way, together
As siblings on this journey
We warm one another
with our care, our tears, and laughter,
Sharing moments of comfort and celebration.
     Tending the flame, lighting the way, together
Sometimes we carry another
Through hard times, across deserts.
Sometimes we are carried,
With others to light the way.
     Tending the flame, lighting the way, together ~ Rev. Tess Baumberger

For Pride Month…
A Protest and a Party
People sometimes ask:
Is Pride a protest
Or a party?
And the answer is
Of course
Yes…
So… Bring your policy demands
Bring your glitter…
Gather up all these things
And bring them here
To a place where we don’t
Have to shoulder these burdens
Or celebrate these joys
Alone…   ~ Rev. Hannah Roberts Villnave, Full piece 

Living with Pride
We light our chalice flame
For those who lived their lives in closets of shame;
For those who furtively visited the bars, where nobody knew your name;
For the Stonewall riot—and the fierce transwomen who fought…
We light our chalice flame for all these,
and for all our siblings of the rainbow,
surviving,
living life out,
in the open,
with Pride. ~ Lori Gorgas Hlaban, Full piece

For Juneteenth…
Juneteenth Prayer
Spirit of Life,
We lift our hearts and intentions to you. As we commemorate this day of freedom for many, let us not forget the enslaved people in states that fought for the Union, who were still waiting for their freedom on this day…
We lift up both those who enslaved and those who were enslaved, as we, their descendants, seek to reconcile our past, live righteously and freely in our present, and protect our future from repeating these histories of oppression. ~ Rev. Ali K.C. Bell, Full piece 

For Father’s Day…
Empowering the fathers of this world * Loraine Bottorff McNeill
Today is Father’s Day, a day in which we honor and offer gratitude for our fathers, in whatever form or fashion they come into our lives… We are shaped by their presence and their absence…
let us also remember that this relationship is not one-sided and that we, as a community, are called to support and empower the fathers of this world—no matter how they came into their roles and regardless of their relative successes or failures. Let us raise up their triumphs and let us have the grace to forgive them their all too human failures. Let us love our fathers and each other. Come, let us worship together. ~ Loraine Bottorff McNeill, Full piece

For Summer Solstice…
In this season of abundance…
Today the sun reaches its highest point, the light its longest stretch, and the living world is fully, gloriously open. The earth does not hesitate at this threshold, it blooms, it buzzes, it gives everything. We gather at this time of turning to celebrate, to give thanks, and to flourish together in this season of abundance. Come, let us worship together. ~ Rev. Michelle Collins

Our service in the world continues.