30 August 2015 Worship Service and Religious Education for Children and Youth

Please join us this Sunday (30 August 2015) at 11:00 AM for “The Federal Flood and the Lesson of Listening” by Susan Caldwell.  The All Souls Choir will sing in this worship service.

As we mark the 10th anniversary of Katrina, a particularly tone-deaf editorial by a writer for the Chicago Tribune has touched off a torrent of anger and pain among survivors in New Orleans, their friends and family and just about anyone with any connection to the storm, all over the country.

050831-N-8154G-198 New Orleans, La. (Aug 31, 2005) Ð A man carries a baby through the flooded streets of New Orleans outside the cities Super Dome football stadium. Tens of thousands of displaced citizens sought shelter at the dome, before, during and after Hurricane Katrina, but have been forced to evacuate as floodwaters continue to rise throughout the area. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate Airman Jeremy L. Grisham (RELEASED)

The oblivious and almost equally insensitive non-apology that followed is indicative of a wider problem … a pattern of not only failing to listen to other people’s experience but often going so far as to speak to those other people and to tell them how they should be thinking or feeling about their own experience.

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23 August 2015 Worship Service and Religious Education for Children and Youth

ChaliceInPulpitPlease join us on Sunday (23 August 2015) at 11:00 AM for “When in Doubt: Challenging the Calculus of Certainty” by Claudia Harris.  We will have music from the All Souls Choir.

Religious education classes for children and youth are offered during the 11:00 AM service — children and youth attend the first 15-20 minutes of the service and then are dismissed to class.

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16 August 2015 Water Communion Worship Service

WaterCommunionPlease join us on 16 August 2015 at 11:00 AM for our annual Water Communion Ceremony worship service with Rev. Barbara Jarrell, the All Souls Choir, and your stories for the water you bring.

The Water Communion is a ritual celebrated in many Unitarian Universalist Churches.

Children and youth will be with us for this service in the sanctuary (no religious education classes — the special summer activity for this Sunday is our annual pool party).

As our members and friends return from their summer adventures — whether far away or right in their own backyards — they bring with them a small container of water (from a place they have visited or representing a special memory of the summer).

We pour our waters together in a common bowl as we each briefly tell our stories and celebrate our coming back together to begin a new church year.

The water is then boiled, filtered, frozen, and saved for future water communions as well as other rituals such as child dedications.

Bring your water in a small container.  If you forget or could not bring actual water from a place you visited, we will have symbolic water on hand for you to add to the bowl.

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9 August 2015 Worship Service and Religious Education for Children and Youth

Journaling-WritingPlease join us on 9 August 2015 at 11:00 AM for “Daily Practice” by Laura Flett.

We welcome back a great friend of the church — Laura Flett, teacher and author of Writing Toward the Light. The All Souls Choir will sing.

Religious education classes for children and youth are offered during the 11:00 AM service — children and youth attend the first 15-20 minutes of the service and then are dismissed to class.

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2 August 2015 Worship Service and Religious Education for Children and Youth

EarthPlease join us on Sunday (2 August 2015) at 11:00 AM for “Turn the World Around” by Rev. Barbara Jarrell.  The All Souls Choir will sing.

Religious education classes for children and youth are offered during the 11:00 AM service — children and youth attend the first 15-20 minutes of the service and then are dismissed to class.

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26 July 2015 Worship Service and Religious Education for Children and Youth

Please join us on Sunday (26 July 2015) at 11:00 AM for “Shining the Light of History” by Pamela Carter Carlisle.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett once said “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”

lynching3

Join us as we hear Pamela Carter Carlisle (All Souls Member and Local History / Public Outreach Specialist for the Bossier Library Historical Center) shine that light of truth into some of the darkest places of the racial history of our own area once known as “Bloody Caddo.”

Religious education classes for children and youth are offered during the 11:00 AM service — children and youth attend the first 15-20 minutes of the service and then are dismissed to class.

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19 July 2015 Artist Sunday Worship

ArtistSundayPanoramaEach year, we devote an entire worship service to a celebration of the arts — for 2015, it will be this Sunday (19 July 2015) at 11:00 AM.

Each element of this service is some kind of artistic performance by our members and friends.  In the past, this has included songs, instrumental music, performance art, magic, poetry, mime, dance and tai chi.

The service itself runs from 60 to 90 minutes.  This will be an all-ages worship service.

ArtistSundayMidShot

The Artist Sunday celebration also features a visual arts display and sale in our religious education wing — beginning from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM and then after the worship service ends until 1:30 PM.

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12 July 2015 Worship Service and Religious Education for Children and Youth

LittleRedRidingHood-WolfPlease join us on Sunday (12 July 2015) at 11:00 AM “Does Trusting Mean Gullible?” by Rev. Barbara Jarrell.

You can trust that this will be a thought-provoking and enlightening service.  The All Souls Choir will sing.  We will have a newcomer information session following the service.

Religious education classes for children and youth are offered during the 11:00 AM service — children and youth attend the first 15-20 minutes of the service and then are dismissed to class.

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5 July 2015 Worship Service and Religious Education for Children and Youth

UncleSamPlease join us on Sunday (5 July 2015) at 11:00 AM for “A More Imperfect Union” by Uncle Sam

Join us Sunday morning to meet Uncle Sam — the personification of an ideal that the Founding Fathers were striving for but never reached (and that we haven’t reached either).

And yet the founders were still willing to leave the door open for an expansive future they couldn’t possibly imagine.

They encoded into the constitution broad rights for every possibility.

They were flawed men, at times blatantly hypocritical, unable to live up to their own ideals.

But they wrote them anyway, doing their best to launch this experiment into the future with as much momentum as they could in the hopes that we could keep it rolling.

The All Souls Choir will sing at this service.

Religious education classes for children are offered during the 11:00 AM service — children attend the first 15-20 minutes of the service and then are dismissed to class.

For today’s service, the middle school and high school classes will remain in the worship service.

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28 June 2015 Worship Service and Religious Education for Children and Youth

Rainbow_flag_breezePlease join us on Sunday (28 June 2015) at 11:00 AM for “Celebrating Pride” with Pam Brown.

June is LGBTQ Pride Month — a time to celebrate the hard-won gains that have come about for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning individuals and to recommit our congregation in continued solidarity to the ongoing struggle.

Come and welcome Pam Brown to our pulpit for the first time.  Melissa Gibson will be our worship associate and Bob Jordan will provide the music.

Don’t miss this wonderful service, and plan to bring a dish to share and stay afterward for the Rainbow Potluck.

Religious education classes for children and youth are offered during the 11:00 AM service — children and youth attend the first 15-20 minutes of the service and then are dismissed to class.

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