The Sunday Services Committee is pleased to announce the speakers for Sunday Services from June 18th through September 3rd, the Labor Day weekend. If you are in town, we believe you will find the services to be of great interest.
During June, July and August, we welcome back four experienced UU ministers who have led USR services in the past: On June 18th, Fathers Day, The Rev. Edward Frost will return to our pulpit. His sermon will be “Life With Our Fathers.” Dr. Frost, the former senior minister of the UU Congregation of Atlanta, has preached at USR a number of times in the last several of years. He will also be preaching at USR on July 9th when he will deal with that which “gets in the way of taking that first step on our most important paths” and on August 6th when his sermon topic will be “Compassion.”
On July 2nd and 23rd, Rev. Allen Wells will return to our pulpit. Alan Wells has served UU congregations in New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts and he directs Allen Wells Counseling in Morristown, NJ.
On July 16th and August 20th, Rev. Heidi Swarts, who is a chaplain at Mount Sinai Hospital and who has spoken previously at USR, will lead our services. And on August 27th, Rev. Mary Tiebout, Consulting Minister at the UU Fellowship of Sussex County, will return to our pulpit.
This summer we will have four seminarians leading our services – two have spoken at the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood previously.
Karen Bray is a candidate for ordination as a UU minister, and she is an Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Wesleyan College. She will return to our pulpit after a hiatus of several years and lead the service on June 25th. Her sermon title is “Holy Blockage,” dealing with “slowdown and slowness as acts of prophetic resistance”.
And on September 3rd, Jessica Halperin will return to our pulpit. Jess has studied two years at Union Theological Seminary, and she led a service at USR last summer. A number of members of our Reproductive Justice Committee worked with Jess when they were preparing our Congregational Study Action Initiative.
We have two voices new to USR this summer: Shari Halliday-Quan, a second-year student at Union Theological Seminary, will lead the August 13th service. And on July 30th, Karen Madrone will be our service leader. Karen is also a second-year student at Union, and she chose a career in the ministry after being a lay-leader in her UU congregation in Greensboro, North Carolina. Karen’s sermon will explore the history of white supremacy in the UU faith.
Sunday Services Committee is excited that we will be bringing old and new voices to our pulpit this summer. We hope you will be able to join us in Anderson this summer.
