Sermon Archive
Sacred Moments and Holy Places
Sacred Moments and Holy Places © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church January 23, 2022 The other day Thich Nhat Hanh, the venerable Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, transitioned from this life to the next one at the age of 95. His life was...
Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year
Dictionary.com’s 2021 Word of the Year © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church January 16, 2022 In case there are any of you who haven’t looked up the 2021 Word of the Year yet, we’ll get to that in just a minute. Maybe your curiosity got the better of you and...
To Live with Zeal
To Live with Zeal © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church January 9, 2022 On a summer day in 1845, Henry David Thoreau wrote these few words in his journal: “July 5. Saturday, Walden. Yesterday I came here to live.” And live there he did, for two years, two...
Cultural Humility
Kelly Knox Dec 12, 2021 Good Morning. It is so wonderful to be here, to see everyone. I have missed this community so very much. The idea for what has now morphed into nothing more than a conversation starter, was born of me telling Reverend Janet that I was chairing...
Giving Thanks for the Pizzazz
Giving Thanks for the Pizzazz © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church November 21, 2021 Yesterday afternoon the Gloucester Meetinghouse Foundation hosted a symposium on refugees and immigration right here in our sanctuary. There was so much information shared,...
Allowing Our Hearts to Break
Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church November 7, 2021 Suddenly, it’s November. Like the trees, who spend autumn drawing nourishment back into their roots, we, too, find that our instincts begin to turn us inward, toward memory and...
What Graveyards Are
What Graveyards Are 1418 Words Karl Frank Oct 31, 2021 When asked if I would deliver a homily today, in a service where we would commemorate the dead, I knew I had some ideas about those things, more particularly about graveyards. I had recently read Robert...
Make Our Broken Pieces Whole
Make Our Broken Pieces Whole © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church October 24, 2021 I had a really positive experience the other day, that I enjoyed thoroughly – I got to sit with a couple of church members to air some conflict. I’ve said often that...
The ‘We’ Above the ‘I’
The ‘We’ Above the ‘I’ © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church October 10, 2021 Braiding Sweetgrass, a beautiful book about indigenous wisdom and what plants have to teach us, is full of stories. The author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, recounted that she once met a...
Good Neighbors
Good Neighbors © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church October 3, 2021 There is a hillside in Salem, that I discovered recently. It’s a small area, tucked between two ordinary houses on an ordinary street. It is a hillside known as Proctor’s Ledge, and there,...
The Guidance System
Led by Newt Fink, Aug 22, 2021 August 22, 2021 UU The guidance system In many examples from nature we see the workings of an apparent guidance system. A tiny bird, the Red Knot, migrates every year eight thousand miles without a map, without a device, through...
Flower Communion
Led by Lucille LePage July 18, 2021 So, what is a Flower Communion? And what is its significance? The story begins almost 100 years ago, in Czechoslovakia, with Dr. Norbert Capek and his wife Maja. Both were Unitarian ministers who started the Unitarian Church of...
Upcoming Services
Building a House Called Tomorrow, led by Reverend Janet Parsons with music by Steve Lacey. As we do each year, we'll reflect on why we create a church community, and how we support it. In a world that shifts daily, a church is meant to hold the center for us. How well can we hold it?
Worship is in-person, or at the livestream link below.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIeJfO72kLh-gAtZZT-QOng/live
Recent News
A Light for Dark Days
A Light for Dark Days © Reverend Janet Parsons Gloucester UU Church December 21, 2025 The Gospel of John tells us: “..the light was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:4b-5.) The year was 1993, over...
Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, 5pm
Please join us and bring your friends and family for our annual candlelight Christmas Eve service, back to our regular time at 5:00 p.m. The ancient story, your favorite carols, the choir, Andy Soll on the organ, and Silent Night sung in candlelight. See you at 5:00...
Sunday Dec 21
A Light for Dark Days, led by Reverend Janet Parsons with music by Steve Lacey. We celebrate the return of the light, as the winter solstice happens right at the beginning of our service! What offers you light during dark times? How can we offer light? Please join us...