Rev. David SchwartzThe tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn’t mean to – like signing up for something when youwanted to unsubscribe—are called dark patterns. They play on your assumptions and expectations to

03/01/2020 Courageous Vulnerabilities

Mar 12th, 2020 16m 10s

Monica Kling-GarciaHow many times have we not tried something new because we feared doing something wrong? Whether it be learning a new language, playing a new sport, or talking to someone new, we’ve all had this experience. It’s difficult wor

02/23/2020 Compassionate Acts

Feb 24th, 2020 15m 36s

Susan FrancesWe will explore what acting with compassion looks like. How do the compassionate acts of being an Upstander or an engaged Bystander affect the communities of which we are a part?

02/16/2020 A Free Religion for All Souls

Feb 18th, 2020 20m 38s

Rev. David SchwartzThe Rev. Dr. Lewis McGee, ordained a Unitarian in 1949, was one of the first Black UU religious leaders. Founding an integrated church in Chicago in 1949, preaching at the intersection of justice, race, and humanism, he offe

02/09/2020 If They Say No, I’ll Go Anyhow

Feb 18th, 2020 25m 51s

Rev. Teresa SchwartzIn honor of Black History month, we’ll explore the story of the first Black Unitarian Minister, Egbert Ethelred Brown, who started a Unitarian congregation in Jamaica in 1908 before moving to Harlem in 1920, where he founde

01/26/2020 Seeking Integrity Versus Despair

Feb 1st, 2020 20m 48s

Rev. Teresa SchwartzIn Erik Erikson’s model of psychosocial developmental stages, the latter years of life are marked by the work of integration versus despair. This is not a passive process—but hard work and is in some ways, paradoxical: inte

01/19/2020 Martin Luther King Birthday Service

Jan 20th, 2020 20m 42s

Rev. Teri Schwartz, Timuel Black, & Michael StrautmanisGather for a special service in which we will celebrate the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The 52 years since his death have seen progress in racial justice—yet ha

01/12/2020 Come Back to Life

Jan 19th, 2020 14m 29s

Rev. David SchwartzThe oldest written story in the world, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is a classic hero’s journey: a story of adventure, bravery, love and grief. 4,500 years after its composition, it still speaks fresh words to our basic humanity,

12/29/2019 Kwanzaa Service

Jan 19th, 2020 48m 25s

Mama EdieWe will light the Kinara and lift up the seven principles of Kwanzaa with words and music. Featuring the special storytelling of Mama Edie. Whether Kwanzaa is a long family tradition, or you’ve never celebrated before, you are warml

12/08/2019 The Empire Strikes First

Dec 13th, 2019 17m 4s

Rev. David SchwartzThe essence of the advent story — a waiting for a rebirth of hope — doesn’t happen in the abstract: it unfolds in an occupied country within an empire of political and economic control. What does it mean to be a people neith

12/01/2019 Simple Gifts

Dec 13th, 2019 13m 31s

Monica Kling-Garcia Schug Ministerial InternThe holiday season is coming, that time of year when our society bombards us with a sensory overload of what to buy, listen to, and enjoy. By contrast, winter brings a quiet peace to nature, with ani

11/17/2019 Lessons Learned from the Loser’s Club

Dec 13th, 2019 16m 53s

Rev. Kevin DeBeckWhile in his home state of Maine recently, the Rev. Kevin DeBeck saw It: Chapter 2. In the story, a group of adults, who call themselves “the Loser’s Club,” go back to the fictitious town of Derry, Maine, to fight their childh

11/03/2019 All Souls Sunday

Nov 14th, 2019 9m 58s

Rev. Teresa and David SchwartzIn this annual service, we will honor and commemorate those in our lives and church family who have died. We will join together in bittersweet memory and love as we reflect on the fleeting and precious gift of lif

10/27/2019 The Grammar of Inclusion

Nov 14th, 2019 17m 35s

Rev. Teresa SchwartzWe live in a culture that tends to recognize just two genders, male and female. The idea that there are only two genders is sometimes called a “gender binary.” Yet, non-binary identities have been recognized for millennia

10/13/2019 Belonging to the World

Oct 19th, 2019 16m 15s

Rev. Teresa SchwartzThe Chicago Children’s Choir was founded as a ministry of First U in 1963. In 1986, the Choir separated from the church to become an organization in its own right. The choir belonged to the church for 30 years, but in letti

10/06/2019 Out of Many, Many

Oct 8th, 2019 17m 29s

Rev. David SchwartzYou have as many non-human cells in you as you do human cells: about 30 trillion human and 30 trillion not. We’re each our own ecosystem: a balance of more than 10,000 different species living together in constant growth and

09/29/2019 Schug Memorial Intern Commissioning and Welcome

Oct 8th, 2019 14m 55s

Monica Kling-GarciaFirst U is proud to be a teaching congregation. Through our Schug Memorial Internship program, we help shape the nextgeneration of Unitarian Universalist Members — and, in turn, we are shaped by them. On this Sunday, we for

09/22/2019 One Foot In, One Foot Out

Oct 8th, 2019 9m 35s

Rev. David SchwartzIn the moment between past journey and future potential, a threshold is a sacred place. Those “in-between” moments are alsoscary, exciting, hopeful, uncertain, anxiety-laden, and filled with possibility. What it means to be

09/15/2019 A Climate of Change

Oct 8th, 2019 16m 28s

Rev. Teresa SchwartzClimate change is the moral crisis of our time and we’re all feeling its effects. This summer record flooding submerged large portions of the Midwest and the U.K. had its hottest day on record.On Friday, September 20th, yo

09/01/2019 Joined by the Labor of Our Hands

Oct 8th, 2019 20m 42s

Rev. David SchwartzThe “Labor” of Labor Day doesn’t celebrate a historical event that’s over and done, and it doesn’t refer just to people in a union. At our annual Labor Day service, we recommit to the dignity and solidarity of work.

08/25/2019 The Space Between Us

Aug 25th, 2019 23m 16s

Joseph Harrington & Brendan EptonBohemian-Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow,

08/18/2019 Returning Home and Beginning Again

Aug 25th, 2019 21m 31s

Revs, D, Schwartz, T, Schwartz, & J. LydonAfter five and a half months on sabbatical, our settled ministers have returned. What has this time apart meant for our congregation? What have we all learned? What has the rest and rejuvenation embold

08/11/2019 Sanctuary

Aug 14th, 2019 32m 40s

Rev. Allen HardenSanctuary—a sacred space, a place of peace, a place of protection. This word shows up frequently in public discourse today, and the practice of providing sanctuary is a bold way of expressing core human values. I believe that

08/04/2019 Cultivating Joy

Aug 5th, 2019 15m 49s

Rev. Darrick JacksonHow do we cultivate joy as a spiritual practice of restoration and resistance?

07/28/2019 The Tortoise Life

Aug 5th, 2019 16m 28s

Rev. Dr. Michelle LattanzioSummer in Chicago is a season abuzz with energy and activity, sometimes to a dizzying degree. In this service, we will lift up the value of slowing down and savoring life in the interest of balance.