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23 Dedham Avenue
Needham, MA 02492

The Deal on Those Days, General Assembly 2022

by

Sunday, July 10, 2022

10:30 am pre-recorded link to the UUA General Assembly on June 26, 2022

 

Worship leaders: Rev. Gretchen Haley, Rev. Shari Halliday-Quan, and Rev.Sean Neil-Barron

 

The service this Sunday was recorded at the UUA General Assembly on Sunday, June 26 in Seattle, Washington.  It has been edited down from its original to fit our one-hour format. The sermon given by Rev.Gretchen Haley explores the challenges our congregations face as we try to live into our beliefs and carry our values out into the world,

The last few years have not been easy, including in our local congregations. Whole swaths of members have simply stopped coming; COVID is confusing, and polarizing; many ministers have joined the great resignation; and Pew studies and friends alike have pronounced the end of the local church.

In this moment, when so many of us might be wondering if we should just give up, and relent, now’s the time instead to double down on our commitment to the local church -this unique community that saves us and also breaks our hearts – often much more of the latter than we’d like to admit. In the midst of our culture of death, the church is a place of life. Or it is, as long as we are willing to bring our own lives to it. Join us for a morning of celebration, witness, and future-visioning for the already and not yet power of the local Unitarian Universalist church.