Past Services and Recordings
February 4, 2024
- It's Not Fair!
- Worship Leader: Rev. Jacqueline Brett
- Music: Chalice Singers & Sunshine Kids (11:00am); Kate Lewis–Pianist; Wendy Looker–Music Director
February 2024 Theme: Justice & Equity
As we begin our focus this month on Justice and Equity, we’ll explore through an interactive service what is often our inherent sense of injustice, that some things are” just not fair”, and what we might feel called to do about it. The 11:00 service is multigenerational (no Religious Exploration classes) and is designed to involve the children and youth at ERUUF.
January 28, 2024
- A Love Supreme
- Worship Leader: Rev. Jacqueline Brett; Michelle C. Johnson, Guest Speaker
- Music: Myk'l Hanna - guest vocalist (11:00); Kate Lewis – Pianist; Pam DiLavore (9:00am Cantor); Jocelyn Neal (11:00am Cantor)
It is possible to listen to the music A Love Supreme by John Coltrane and minimize the love he references through notes and tones. It is also possible to engage Coltrane's work of art as a portal for awakening. This Sunday’s guest speaker Michelle C. Johnson shares about the intersections of justice and spiritual practice and justice and love. What does it look like to embody a love so vast for the liberation of all?
~ ~ ~
Michelle Cassandra Johnson is an author, activist, spiritual teacher and practitioner, racial equity consultant and trainer, and intuitive healer.
January 21, 2024
- Worship Leader: Rev. Jacqueline Brett
- Music: Eno River Singers (11:00); Kate Lewis – Pianist; Wendy Looker – Music Director
Mystic Howard Thurman spoke of moving beyond a general love for humanity to the cultivation of love as a foundational inner practice that leads us to take action in particular ways, for particular situations, and particular people. This Sunday we’ll explore what it means to move from love as a generality to love in the “particulars.”
Simon Kaplan, Worship Associate
January 14, 2024
- Practicing Love Justice and Liberation
- Worship Leader: Rev. Jacqueline Brett
- Music: Beloved Community Chorus (11:00 am); Kate Lewis – Pianist; Wendy Looker – Music Director
Martin Luther King, Jr. was known globally for his commitment to Love, Justice, and Liberation, even in the face of dire and threatening circumstances. As we celebrate his birthday this Sunday, we’ll explore some of the practices that fuel such commitments.
January 7, 2024
- Love as Spiritual Practice
- Worship Leader: Rev. Daniel Trollinger
- Music: The Sirens & the Maudlin Brothers (11:00 am); Kate Lewis – Pianist; Wendy Looker – Music Director
The promise of a new year brings an opportunity to begin again, to face, even embrace change. If Love is an embodied spiritual practice, how does this guide our doing and being? How do we engage the liberating power of love in a world of ever-increasing vulnerability, uncertainty, and complexity? Lisa Jones – Worship Associate (11:00 am)
December 31, 2023 - One Service
- Kwanzaa -- Kuumba!
- Worship Leader: Rev. Jacqueline Brett
- Music: Beloved Community Chorus; Guests Musicians: Demeanor, The Ancestors Voice Ensemble; Kate Lewis – Pianist; Wendy Looker – Music Director
ONE SERVICE - 11:00 am
Join us this Sunday for our annual Kwanzaa celebration as we focus on Kuumba, the sixth principal of Kwanzaa, which honors the creativity of people of the African diaspora. We’ll focus upon creatives in North Carolina. A Kwanzaa Karamu (feast) will take place directly after the service. All are welcome!
Guest Creators:
D.J. Rogers - Durham Poet Laureate, Veronica Carlisle and Melanie Dantzle - African American Quilt Circle of Durham, William Paul Thomas - Visual Artist, Nina Goffney - Visual Artist
December 24, 2023
- 5:00 pm – Holiday Pageant; 7:00 pm Candlelight Service
- Worship Leader: Rev. Jim Lewis [5:00 pm]; Rev. Jacqueline Brett [7:00 pm]
- Music: Eno River Singers [7:00 pm]; Kate Lewis–Pianist; Wendy Looker–Music Director
No morning service today.
5:00 pm Our Tale in Bethlehem
Journey with us through Bethlehem on a special night and join us in asking questions to find out what is going on!
7:00 pm It's Christmas!
December 17, 2023 - One Service
- Lessons and Carols
- Worship Leaders: Rev. Jacqueline Brett and Dr. Wendy Looker
- Music: Jane Hewitt and Catherine Alguire – Harp; River Folk, Chalice Singers – Co-leaders: Jocelyn Neal, Pam DiLavore; Sunshine Kids – Co-leaders: Kristi Chilton, Art Hollander, and Melissa Merres; Eno River Singers; Elias Gross – Viola; Stanley Wilson – Tenor; Beloved Community Chorus; Kate Lewis – Pianist; Dr. Wendy Looker–Music Director
ONE SERVICE - 11:00 AM
December 13, 2023
- Jazz for the Holidays
- Worship Leader: Rev. Jacqueline Brett
- Music: Guest Artists: Shana Tucker – cello and vocals and Christian Tamburr – piano and vibraphone
We invite you to join us for a winter Vespers service that beckons you into sacred rest and contemplation through music, poetry, prose, and song. Worship Associates: Johann Montozzi-Wood and Mur Lafferty
All are welcome.
December 10, 2023
- Stories of Future Past
- Worship Leader: Rev. Daniel Trollinger
- Music: Lisa Rhodes - Guitar and Vocals with Elana Scheiner, Cello [11:00 am]; Kate Lewis – Pianist; Wendy Looker – Music Director
The holiday season is a time full of stories, both in the culture and our own personal histories. These stories are gifts. Reflecting on the completion of one year and the anticipation of a new one, how can we open these gifts and share them with others? How does sharing the gift of stories invite us into mystery and wonder? [Mur Lafferty, Worship Associate 11:00 am service]
Generosity Sunday recipient is Families Moving Forward.
December 3, 2023
- Advent: Making Room for Compassion
- Worship Leader: Rev. Jacqueline Brett with the ERUUF Christian Fellowship
- Music: River Folk [11:00 am]; Kate Lewis – Pianist; Wendy Looker – Music Director
In the Christian tradition, today marks the first Sunday of Advent, a season that includes the four Sundays before Christmas, and established around 590 CE. Each of the four Sundays in Advent has a theme associated with it – Love, Hope, Joy, and Peace. Join with the ERUUF Christian Fellowship to explore Love and its close cousin Compassion -- a "feeling with" others, a virtue at the center of the Way of Jesus and every major religion. Advent Resources for UUs.
