Speaker: Joyful Noise

Dancing in the Dark, A Winter Solstice Celebration – 9:20 and 11:20

Dancing in the Dark, A Winter Solstice Celebration – 9:20 and 11:20 services
In the depths of the winter, we recognize the holy in darkness and in what promises to emerge from its shimmering depths. As a community of all ages, we gather to celebrate the turning of the season. The service will end with the children and youth hunting for the sun.
This is a Multigenerational Service.

“The Path to Choose”

We welcome this year’s Balazs Scholar Rev. Emese Bodor as our guest preacher. Rev. Bodor’s topic, The Path to Choose. A short journey from Jesus’s world and words through daily Transylvanian life and reality. How do we make our decisions and commitments? Let us come together and celebrate the roots of our Unitarian Universalist heritage and the arrival of Advent. Worship Associate Amanda Smith, Pastor Jacqueline and Crescendo Choir will help us usher in the beauty and sacredness of this season. Joyful Noise will provide acoustic praise and worship prelude to open our hearts to our spiritual journeys. Please join us! All are welcome! This is a Time For All Ages Service.

Accidental Saints: Revealing the Holy in Ourselves and Our Lives, Worship at 9:20 and 11:20

Accidental Saints: Revealing the Holy in Ourselves and Our Lives. Revelation is a word often associated with religious thought, particularly the wrath of the end times in the Christian scriptures. However, Revelation can be and is experienced as sacred moments and acts that reveal the holy to ourselves, sometimes through ourselves.

In Nadia Bolz Weber’s book “Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People” she describes her process of discovering the truth of God in everyday people, events, and circumstances. How do we experience revelation in our lives? How is the holy and the divine revealed to us in our struggles, imperfections, and wounds? How can we welcome the Holy into our lives through welcoming Blessed Revelation? Please join guest preacher Amanda Weatherspoon as we explore the gnarly spiritual landscape of revelation and recognizing the holy.Half a Dozen of the Other and pianist Geoff Ullerich and Joyful Noise will illuminate our spiritual journey with music. Come let us be together. There is Children’s Chapel today

“Thinking – and Living Beyond Our Bubbles” Two Services: 9:20 & 11:20

“Thinking — and Living — Beyond Our Bubbles” We humans create settings where we feel safe and valued. Paradoxically, while some have the experience of being protected and appreciated, others have the experience of being victimized and demeaned — even within our Unitarian Universalist environments. What … read more.

“Look – There Goes & Here Comes Generosity” ONE Worship Service at 10:20

“Look -There Goes & Here Comes Generosity”. Let us welcome the Reverend Maria Cristina Vlassidis, the guest preacher for our stewardship celebration Sunday. Rev. Cristina serves the Starr King UU Church in Hayward, CA. She states, “Now more than ever, we need to celebrate community, to be united, to show generosity, and support the transformative work of the First Unitarian Church of Oakland. On Sunday, Nov 5, her sermon will call us to celebrate by being together and remembering those who came before us. To remember those who took risks to uphold our Unitarian Universalist values. Those whose generous contributions sustained our sanctuary so that it is open today. Open as a holy place to practice our values, to offer each other compassion, to conspire against hatred, to rekindle hope, and practice unconditional love. Please join Joyful Noise (acoustic praise & worship opening), Crescendo Choir, Pastor Jacqueline, Rev. Sheri and Worship Associate Kem Tetlow as we celebrate the bounty that is the First Unitarian Church of Oakland. During worship we will share in a ritual to receive our stewardship pledges.This is a Time For All Ages Service. Immediately following worship we will gather in community for a celebration brunch. All are welcomed to join us for brunch. Please RSVP on the church website.

Reverend María Cristina immigrated with her grandmother and her mother to the United States from Chile in the late 1970s. She holds a Law Degree from the City University of New York School of Law, where she specialized in Immigrants’ Rights. She holds a Master of Divinity and Doctoral degree in Theology from Harvard University.

Reverend María Cristina has more than three decades of work experience related to social justice, including working with mothers in prison, immigrants, survivors of domestic violence, people living with traumatic brain injury, and children with disabilities. Her volunteer work as advocate and community organizer includes working with the LGBTQ community.

She received her call to the ministry while working in an AIDS hospice as a legal advocate, was ordained to the Unitarian Universalist Ministry at at First Parish Unitarian Universalist church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and now serves Starr King UU Church in Hayward as their Settled Minister. She lives with her mother, Lily and their two cats Tobias and Rafiki.

From Lakshmi to Fortuna: Faith & Prosperity

Is money the only determinant of prosperity? Please join Pastor Jacqueline and musical trio of Susan Keiter, Joci Kelleher and Sarah Watts, along with Joyful Noise & pianist Geoff Ullerich, as we explore what faith traditions and spiritual paths have to offer us about living a prosperous life. During worship there will be an activity for all ages, especially our children and youth to reflect on stewardship. Stewardship testimonials will be offered by Jane and Gary Facente. Please join us at 9:20 & 11:20. It is good, just and sacred to be together.         

“Called to Love,” Two Worship Services, 9:20 and 11:20

“Called to Love”, is our 2017 stewardship theme. Our Stewardship Kickoff Sunday coincides with a call out form Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism to organize a teach-in to further examine our relationships to white supremacy. Is there a spiritual connection between stewardship and white supremacy? If so, what is it? From a place of love and generosity are you ready to support our stewardship campaign? How does your love call you to engage the struggles that are bond together in the phrase “white supremacy”?  Please show up for worship and join Pastor Jacqueline, Rev. Mary Foran, Worship Associate Isabel Call and members of our Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Team, and members of our Stewardship Campaign Team as we kickoff our stewardship campaign and spiritually explore the relationships between stewardship and dismantling systems and practices of oppression. Inspirational music will be provided by Joyful Noise and Crescendo Choir.  Whoever you are, where ever you come from, you are welcome to worship with us. See you Sunday.

A Vision: Within, Among & Beyond, Worship Services, 9:20 and 11:20

A Vision: Within, Among & Beyond. As an individual, as a family; where are you going and how will you get there? As a religious community where is First Unitarian Church of Oakland going? How will we get there? In these days of hate speech, mass killings, devastating weather patterns and depressing uncertainties for more and more of humanity, beloved communities like First Unitarian Church of Oakland must have a clear and compelling vision that SPIRITUALLY GUIDES AND INSPIRES the DIVERSE WHOLE  of US and offers BRIGHT HOPE for CHANGE. Join Rinda Bartley, Jeff Leyser, Michael Schafer,& Pastor Jacqueline as we prayerfully launch and embrace our  process to co-create a new vision  statement. A vision that will guide and inspire the WE of US to live into our highest aspirations.  Inspirational music will be brought by Stefan Schneider, Geoff Ullerich and Joyful Noise. Members, friends and allies whoever you are, please join us. Together let us imagine the future and begin to discern what we can do to make a remarkable and holy difference for many.  There will be two worship services, 9:20 and 11:20. Children’s Chapel will be provided.