Summer Worship Services 2025
Our Summer Worship services begin Sunday, June 22nd and last through Labor Day, with services led by a slate of incredible lay leaders throughout the summer. Join us in person in our air-conditioned Parish Room or on Zoom at 11am each Sunday!
Summer Services Zoom link: https://uuma.zoom.us/j/145662677
Meeting ID: 145 662 677
Call in number: (646) 876-9923
Meeting ID: 145 662 677
June 22: Summer Solstice Celebration
Beth Ralston has been a member of First UU for 29 years. During this time, as a member of the Earth-Based Ritual Group, she helped to plan and took part in annual Winter Solstice Celebrations, as well as other earth-based celebrations marking the earth’s seasonal transitions. She feels that by taking part in these services, First UU members and visitors can be reminded of their vital connections with nature, as well as with the natural environment. In her spare time Beth likes to spend time writing, drawing and painting, gardening and taking long walks in her West Philadelphia neighborhood. Her work experience includes teaching, counseling and health insurance.
Worship Leader: Elizabeth Ralston
Beth Ralston and service leaders will lead the congregation in celebrating the annual Summer Solstice, the longest day and shortest night of the year which is marked by sun, warmth and growth and abundance of nature. Marking the transition from Spring into Summer, the Summer Solstice has been celebrated for thousands of years by ancient people from all over the world. By sharing readings and poems, as well as personal and Native American anecdotes, she and other service leaders hope to illustrate the importance for all of us to better understand and experience our personal connections with nature as well as with all of the natural world at this time of year.
June 29: Hope for Cynics
The impulse to give in to distrust, cynicism, and despair is strong in these dark times, but both science and our faith counsel a different path: not blind optimism, but a practice of hope.
Worship Leader: Erin Worrell
Erin Worrell is a past worship associate, summer worship leader, and board treasurer. While doomscrolling Twitter did help her find her beloved partner, she’s since given up that habit in favor of seeking sources of hope in a difficult world. She investigates financial crimes by day and she’s a musician nights and weekends, performing as the saxophonist for the First U Band and clarinetist for FUIE.
July 6: Writing+Poetry as a Spiritual Path
Writing has served as a powerful spiritual discipline since time immemorial. Through the practice of putting words to mystery, inner longing, and sacred silence, writing becomes a connecting, enlightening, and healing ritual: a way to witness the divine in everyday, to reflect on human existence and purpose. Poetry, especially, distills truth with reverence, offering a contemplative path where language becomes and ever unfurling prayer, and ever unfolding practice of Being, and each word is both a step inwardly and a bridge to All That Is. What if we were to write and honestly (re)write ourselves into evolving esitence, and in doing so, encounter something+someone
Worship Leader: rev [Alexandre da Silva Souto]
July 13: Spirituality, Translation, and Taoism: Understanding over thousands of years
Many of the texts we see as foundational to our collective understanding of the world, culture, and faith practices are not native to English, but at one point have been reinterpreted from another language. In this service we’ll explore how Taoism, a philosophical tradition dating back over two-thousand years, can help us think about language, and what it means to truly read and understand what another human has written.
Worship Leader: Daniel Korn
Daniel Korn is a local theater producer and scientific researcher. He works on the tech team and is a member of the First Church Voices choir. He has had a lifelong interest in literature, patterns, and linguistics for many years, and professionally studies methods for using computers to represent biomedical concepts and information.”
July 20: Worthy Later, Worthy Now: Lessons from van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh is, easily, one of the world’s most famous artists. But during his life, society marginalized him for his Madness and mental illness. After his suicide, his family continued to celebrate his art, forever enshrining it in our culture. In this service, we’ll reflect on how Madness can gift us spiritual clarity, and explore the role memory has to play in building a more just world.
Worship Leader: jo van kuilenburg
jo van kuilenburg (they/he) is a first generation dutch-english immigrant who feels the Spirit of life in art, history, and the company of others. they are an autistic Mad person who is working towards a world where instability is recognized as a strength. in his free time, you can find him reading newspapers from the 19th century or taking photos of graffiti.
July 27: Circles and Elephants
Circles and elephants- what could they possibly have in common? As we explore their messages and symbolisms, we will find lessons of strength, interconnectedness, and healing. Join us as we reflect on how circles and elephants can guide us and provide solace in their constancy amidst life’s chaos.
Worship Leader: Brenda (Bren) Crowding
Brenda (Bren) Crowding (she/hers) has over 35 years of experience working in the criminal justice and human services fields including 20+ years with the state of California as the first queer person and woman to be appointed Deputy Director of the Offices of Internal Affairs and Civil Rights. Bren holds a master’s degree in human services from Lincoln University. She has been an academy instructor, a master trainer, and a presenter/keynote speaker at national conferences throughout her career. Since her “retirement” in 2020, Bren continues to consult and teach on topics including equity, implicit bias, principled policing, vicarious trauma, multigenerational strategic workforces, LGBTQI+ allyship, and…elephants! In her spare time, she works at a substance abuse treatment facility.
August 3: Questions of Faith
This Sunday, we reflect on the power of questions in our lives, and take time in service to offer our questions on matters of spirituality and social justice to Rev. Abbey and other worship leaders to answer in this spontaneous, unscripted service!
Worship Leader: Rev. Abbey Tennis
August 10: Exit, Voice, or Loyalty? Responding to Injustice
Starting with the story of the film Women Talking, we will examine moral decision-making in the face of injustice or any situation (personal or political) blocking human flourishing. The suggested framework—exit, voice, and loyalty—comes from a 1970 book by economist Alfred O. Hirschman. Hirshman was a German Jew and anti-fascist who worked in the French resistance, helping refugees escape. He powerfully defends the role of collective voice in economic, political, and personal life.
Worship Leader: Ellen Mutari
Ellen Mutari is a lifelong UU, a writer, researcher, teacher, and activist. She is a pluralist economist who draws inspiration and ideas from multiple theories—probably because of her UU upbringing! Ellen became intrigued to learn more about AO Hirschman’s life and work when watching a Netflix docudrama about the WWII French resistance and realizing that the “Albert” character who was helping refugees escape was the same person who later wrote “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty.”
August 17: What We Carry – How We Journey
To bless is to “infuse with the sacred.” As students and educators prepare to return to a new school year, as we approach the formal beginning of our congregational year, and we reflect on other turning points in our lives and world, how might we bring an attitude of blessing to the journeys to come? Bring your backpacks, briefcases, purses, bikes, transit passes, car keys, or other symbols of what we carry and how we journey for a blessing as we prepare for the fall!
Worship Leader: Rev. Abbey Tennis
August 24: Blessing of the Animals, Blessed by the Animals (Sanctuary)
Worship Leader: rev [Alexandre da Silva Souto]
August 31: Dance: The “Hidden Language of the Soul”
Dancing, like singing, is a human birthright: It is a creative process we all have access to, and the magic we make together while dancing builds connection in a way that no other medium can. Join us ready to move on Sunday as we explore the transformative, spiritual, community-activating, joy-abounding powers of getting down.
Worship Leader:Adrienne Perry and Nik Kroushl
Adrienne G. Perry (she/her) is a writer, teacher, beginning gardener, and lover of animals. Throughout her life, dance has been a balm for her soul. A source of joy, creativity, and connection, dancing in all kinds of contexts has led to feeling more grateful and alive. Music. Movement. Transcendence. Resistance and receptivity. Getting into and over oneself: for Adrienne dance is a fun and revealing infinite gift.
Nik Kroushl (she/her) is a lay leader, educational program manager, lover of stories, community seeker, cat/plant mom, and for the last 7 years and counting, a student of Latin dance. You can frequently catch her grooving at the front of the sanctuary during service. Marching band taught her how to step on beat; a healthy resilience to public embarrassment taught her how to shake it in front of others despite her lack of formal dance training. She believes that dance is a language we all speak, a creative medium we all have access to (even in dance traditions with “rules”!), and that the magic we make together in partner dancing or group dancing builds connection in a way that few other mediums can.
