Services
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Please join us for Sunday morning worship beginning at 10:30. Dress is casual - jeans are fine!
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Children are welcome and join us for the beginning part of all services. We do hold multi-generational services will include children for the entire service. We provide childcare for infants and toddlers and offer spiritual education classes for for kids 5 and up.
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At CUUB, we encourage people to live the questions. We don't claim to have all the answers, and we don't tell you what to believe. We are a community of people from different backgrounds who come together to support each other and search for truth and meaning together. CUUB offers a place of comfort for people whose spirituality doesn't always fit within the confines of traditional religion, or within any religion.
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Sermon topics are varied, from environmental, social justice, spiritual, historical, and philosophical topics. We like to say, "Come back next week for something completely different!"
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If you would like to learn more about Unitarian Universalism, please feel free to contact us. You may enjoy watching the UUA video, "Voices of a Liberal Faith." In this video, members and ministers share their thoughts on worship and fellowship, explain the goals of religious education, explore the historic roots of our religion, and celebrate the spirit of social justice that inspires our faith. Follow this link to the YouTube video.
Past Services
For videos of recent sermons go to https://www.youtube.com/@communityunitarianuniversa3724
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Atheism and Humanism - What is possible when we don't have to believe.
Sunday, January 13th, 2019
Rev. Julie Brock
Hitchens, Dawkins, Dietrich, oh my! There was a time in history of humanity when the concept of Atheism would have been impossible. Humans beings understood themselves and their lives in the context of religious teaching, which included life after this one. In the last 150 years, the concept of life beyond those teachings became a possibility. Come to church to hear the story of church being de-centered from human life, and how atheism and humanism have impacted our lives and culture. Hint: Atheism and Humanism are not interchangeable!
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Experiencing Possibility
Sunday, January 6th, 2019
Rev. Julie Brock
Of all our topics this year, possibility is arguably most central to our faith. It has distinguished Unitarian Universalists from the start. Historically, when others saw depravity and sin at the core of human identity, we saw potential--sometimes with hardly any boundaries. When many were preaching that this world was fallen, and we should look instead to the hope of an afterlife, we found ourselves falling in love with the possibility of heaven on earth.
Where are we still a people of possibility? Where does our theology find hope and expect justice? And what will it take for us to live into the world we dream about?
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The Holy Lives On
Sunday, December 30th, 2018
Karen Sanderson
As we come to the end of the year, we often pause and reflect on what has transpired durning the current year; deciding what to take forward with us and what to leave behind. "A Course in Miracles" offers a systematic approach to letting go of the world's thought system based on fear: It offers a psychologically sophisticated spiritual thought system based on love. According to the "Course" Jesus of Nazareth was one who himself gave birth to the "Christ" within himself. The Dec 30th service "The Holy Lives on" offers the belief that each of us has the same potential. It is not difficult; perhaps just different, outside our current realm of thoughts. Letting go of our thought system based on fear (including those of wounds and grievances) is the first step; then making room for the holy to come forth within you: The Holy Lives on! Come see if that may work for you.
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Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, December 25th, 2018
CUUB will be hosting our annual Christmas Potluck brunch and carols. This year we will be inviting our neighbors in need of housing and food to join us, so please come and bring a dish to share at 10am. There will be no Christmas Eve Service at CUUB this year. St. Paul's will be holding a midnight candlelight service, and the Ann Arbor UU church has several services on Christmas Eve.
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The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming
Sunday, December 16th, 2018
CUUB Spiritual Exploration Team
Come one, come all to our yearly Spiritual Exploration Holiday Play. Each year we choose a different religion, to learn about their special holidays in an appropriate way. This year we are pleased to present Lemony Snicket version of, The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming. Join us to learn about what this walking talking potato pancake has to do with Hanukkah. This quirky comedy play will be sure to delight you and leave you hungry.
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Question Box Sermon
Sunday, December 9th, 2018
Rev. Julie Brock
Do you have questions for Rev. Julie? They could be about the Fellowship, or theology, or current events, or Unitarian Universalism, or whatever is on your heart and mind. At the beginning of the service she will invite you to write questions on index cards; her spontaneous responses to these questions will be the sermon.
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Experiencing Mystery
Sunday, December 2nd, 2018
Rev. Julie Brock
We all know that there are things we can't explain. In the age of science and control, human beings tend to greet the unknown with anxiety and fear. It is concurrently true that humans need to experience awe and wonder to feel fulfilled and connected. Let us try to connect with the mystery of the universe and creation as a lovely, deep, and rich experience.
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Choosing Our Story: a Way to Gratitude
Sunday, November 25th, 2018
Rev. Karen McFarland
There are at least three major stories about how we organize life in our modern world. We get to choose which one of these three stories we want to live out. Which one represents our heart song? Which one resonates with our personal spiritual journey and our UU principles and sources? Come and learn together. Come and be together in beloved community. Come and sound your body and soul with gratitude.
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Sunday Service
Sunday, November 18th, 2018
Laura Kraftowitz
Laura Kraftowitz is a Daniel Keyes Scholar in Creative Writing at Wayne State University in Detroit. Her writing and work have been featured in NPR, Salon.com, Reuters, Peace Under Fire, The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and The Stranger, as well as documentaries including The Killing Zone and Rachel.
About her talk:
When her parents stop paying for college, Laura is summarily demoted from a vaguely ambitious, complacently confused but nonetheless diploma-bound existence. She finds herself a penniless college dropout with no marketable skills and no real career objectives. With nothing but time on her hands, she goes abroad in search of herself. She signs up for the Birthright tour, a free trip to Israel, hoping to discover her roots and become an Israeli citizen.
When things don't go as planned, she takes a detour to Rafah—an isolated Gazan border town—and lands in the heart of a conflict she is completely unprepared to deal with. Laura joins a group of idealistic but poorly-organized peace activists with bullhorns and orange vests committed to alerting the world to the slow devastation of a city where UN peace-keepers have been denied entry and where home demolitions are a regular occurrence. She arrives with equal parts fear and curiosity and is taken aback at how warmly the targets of Israeli bullets welcome a twenty-year-old Jewish-American girl into their homes. Over months of shared meals, Arabic and English lessons, Saturday morning cartoons, an unexpected romance, and sleepless nights to the staccato of gunfire, the families of Rafah adopt Laura—even if they go on to lose the homes she was there to protect.
A keen observer of both political and personal narratives, Laura paints an intimate portrait of a people traumatized but not broken by war; hers is an account that bears witness to one of the most deeply-rooted and enduring conflicts of our time.
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Acknowledging that we did not make ourselves
Sunday, November 11th, 2018
Rev. Julie Brock
"To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrow, is always a measure of what has gone before." - Alice Walker
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Experiencing Memory
Sunday, November 4th, 2018
Rev. Julie Brock
The theme of the month is memory. Memory is tied fast to identity. What one remembers about their story is a large part of who one is. If memory had a voice, it wouldn’t sing “remember me.” It would call out, “don’t forget who you are.” This week you are invited to choose a treasured item from your past that reminds you of a time you felt good and whole. Please bring it with you, as together, we travel through nostalgia and see what we've left there, that we may yet want with us.
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Subject to Surveillance: Those without sanctuary
Sunday, October 28th, 2018
Rev. Julie Brock
What if you knew there was no safe space? What if you couldn't feel free to speak on the phone, in your office, or even your home? Some groups of people are considered dangerous and put under constant surveillance, but what does the inability to have privacy and confidences do to the human spirit? Where have we seen this in history? Come to church to find out.
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The Shelter of Each Other
Sunday, October 21st, 2018
Rev. Julie Brock
Psychologist Mary Phiepher says that what people really need is ``protected time and space’’ in which we can connect with one another and with nature. I always say, you don't have to show up every Sunday morning, but please don't stop going to church. In other words, we don't have to be your sanctuary every week, but it is important that you do find sanctuary for the hectic circumstance of human living. Let's carve out some time to talk about why the practice of protected time is so important.
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Immigration Story
Sunday, October 14th, 2018
Julica Hermann de la Fuente
Our guest preacher Julica Hermann de la Fuente brings us three stories about immigration, courage, resilience and risk.
Julica is a Lay Community Minister and currently serves as a retreat leader for the Beloved Conversations program and as a program leader for the UU College of Social Justice. Born and raised in Mexico City, she first became committed to social justice when she came to the United States for college. Since then, she has been an anti-racism/anti-oppression educator and trainer in a variety of capacities over the past two decades. In addition to a Lay Community Ministry degree from Meadville Lombard, she also holds an MSW and is certified as a master life coach.
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Experiencing Sanctuary
Sunday, October 7th, 2018
Rev. Julie Brock
Just saying the word “sanctuary” brings one a sense of peace and safety. It can bring back conflicted memories for some, but for most of us the idea of sanctuary conjures up feelings of being protected. Like its close cousin refuge, it speaks to the universal longing for a space to retreat from the dangers and depletions of the world. One thinks of the family ties and friendships that protect, restore and heal us. The sanctuary movement and its refuge for immigrants is another powerful example of offering life-giving safe space. As the well-loved Irish proverb puts it, “It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.” - Soul Matters
Let us give thanks and rejoice for what sanctuary we are offered and that we may offer to the world.
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Confessions of a Recovering Progressive
Sunday, September 30th, 2018
Micheal Dowd and Connie Burlow
Progress is the de facto religion in the industrial world. But something has changed in America. What happens when we progressives ‘lose the faith’?
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Vision of a Unified Country
Sunday, September 23rd, 2018
Elissa Slotkin
Elissa Slotkin has a vision of a community brought together through the common mission of caring for each other. CUUB focuses on creating community as a core part of our mission. How, in this divisive time, can we come together as one community and commit to a future we can all believe in? Come to church to hear a community organizer talk about what it takes. It was one of Jim Swonk's last wishes that Elissa Speak in our pulpit. He was a man that understood the need to work together through differences. Let's honor our own values and his legacy with this exciting speaker.
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Vision Come True - Celebrating 20 years of the founders' vision.
Sunday, September 16th, 2018
CUUB Community and Founders
In 1998, a few bright eyed young men and women decided to gather in each other's living rooms on Sunday morning to search for truth and meaning, uphold human worth, and celebrate the interconnected web of existence. What came from that is the beloved community that gathers at 3333 S. Old US highway 23 each Sunday morning. Come hear the stories, and celebrate the success of the wonderful people who were there from the beginning.
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