Imperceptible Song

What is your relationship with attention? Learning from bats, this worship service will cultivate attention for what is beyond our senses. We will cocreate an experience of wonder and deepen our relationship with a species in our area. Ally Hunter is the Worship Associate and Gregory Shifrin is on piano.

Ryland Rich (she/they) is currently serving as the ministerial intern at Third Unitarian Church of Chicago while completing seminary at Meadville Lombard Theological School. Originally from MidCoast Maine, Ryland has lived in Chicago for four years. Curiosity and delight shape her ministry alongside Ryland’s experiences with labor organizing and conflict mediation. 

Today’s offering will be shared with Mother and Child Alliance, whose mission is to strengthen the safety net for pregnant persons before and after delivery, to prevent HIV transmission and other serious infections in newborns, and to address the disparate prenatal and postpartum systems of care in Illinois and across the U.S.

Upcoming Services

8/23/2026 – Rev. Susan Frances, Slackline Thoughts

8/30/2026 – Rev. Allison Farnum, Activating Transformation

9/6/2026 – Rev. Eileen Wiviott, The Power of Coalition

9/13/2026 – Ingathering Water Communion with Rev. Eileen and Rev. Susan

The Sounds of Silence

Summer is not usually a quiet time — festivals thumping, barbecues sizzling, leaf-blowers blaring, birds singing, and protests crying. This service asks when we might want to seek silence, and if silence is even possible. What is lost, or what is found, when we slip into silence? When might silence, as the famous song suggests, carry its own sound? Annette Wallace is Worship Associate and Gregory Shifrin is on piano.

Our Worship Leader is Dr. Emily Mace, a UU ministerial candidate and a seminarian at Meadville Lombard Theological School, where she is the Student Advisory Council Co-President for 2026. She currently serves as the ministerial intern at Unity Temple in Oak Park, and she completed her clinical pastoral education unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Emily holds a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a PhD in religious studies from Princeton University. She is a writer, UU historian, and teacher, as well as a fiber artist and nature lover. Emily lives in Highland Park, IL, where she and her spouse are raising two teen daughters.

Today’s offering will be shared with Mother and Child Alliance, whose mission is to strengthen the safety net for pregnant persons before and after delivery, to prevent HIV transmission and other serious infections in newborns, and to address the disparate prenatal and postpartum systems of care in Illinois and across the U.S.

Upcoming Services

8/16/2026 – Ryland Rich, Imperceptible Song

8/23/2026 – Rev. Susan Frances, Slackline Thoughts

8/30/2026 – Rev. Allison Farnum, Activating Transformation

9/6/2026 – Rev. Eileen Wiviott, The Power of Coalition

Dreamers

 “Their heads were always in the stars.” This could be said of Joseph from the Biblical book of Genesis and Luke Skywalker of Star Wars. Their hero journeys have much to teach us about where we come from and why we might be here. Rev. Jules Taylor is our Worship Leader with Mary Dudek as Worship Associate. Gregory Shifrin is our pianist.

Rev. Jules Taylor is a Unitarian Universalist community minister specializing in critical incident response, community crisis, and pastoral care. Jules is the Senior Director of Contextual Ministry and an affiliate professor at Meadville Lombard Theological School. In addition, Jules serves as a chaplain (Major) in the New York Air National Guard, responder with the UU Trauma Response Ministry, and is a certified divorce coach.

Today’s offering will be shared with Mother and Child Alliance, whose mission is to strengthen the safety net for pregnant persons before and after delivery, to prevent HIV transmission and other serious infections in newborns, and to address the disparate prenatal and postpartum systems of care in Illinois and across the U.S.

Upcoming Services

8/9/2026 – Dr. Elizabeth Mace, Sounds of Silence

8/16/2026 – Ryland Rich, Imperceptible Song

8/23/2026 – Rev. Susan Frances, Slackline Thoughts

8/30/2026 – Rev. Allison Farnum, Activating Transformation

What’s Your Story?

Storytelling has always been an important part of being human. So important, in fact, that stories are a key way for us to understand ourselves, each other, and the world around us. Today, we reflect on how we write our own stories, how we tell them, and how we can use stories to build a better future and a better world. Nellie Eastman leads the service with Sarah Vanderwicken as Worship Associate. Gregory Shifrin is our pianist.

Nellie Eastman is a transgender woman, a mother, a lover, and a fighter. She cares fiercely for her family, friends, loved ones, and community, and strives to make the lives of everyone around her just a little bit better, or at least a little more entertaining. She has two wonderful children that she is raising in partnership with her friend and Coparent. She lives in Chicago with her nesting partner, and stays out of trouble. …Most of the time.

Today’s offering will be shared with Zacharias Center,  which works to mobilize the community toward ending systemic sexual violence while amplifying the voice of survivors through trauma-informed care, advocacy, and prevention education.

Upcoming Services

8/2/2026 – Rev. Jules Taylor, Dreamers

8/9/2026 – Dr. Elizabeth Mace, Sounds of Silence

8/16/2026 – Ryland Rich, Imperceptible Song

8/23/2026 – Rev. Susan Frances

In The Absence of Clarity

When people in any organization are not given clear, shared, honest answers to the question of what they are trying to accomplish together, they do not operate in a neutral zone. They fill in the center. They fill it with their own histories, their own fears, their own private visions of what the organization should be. And they work from those private understandings, which means a congregation full of people who genuinely share the same values can still be pulling in fundamentally different directions, without anyone having done anything wrong. This is why it is important to create a shared understanding of how to live the mission, because in the absence of clarity, people fill in their own meaning and context. Rev. David Miller, a native Evanstonian, is our preacher. Lynn Kendall serves as Worship Associate and Gregory Shifrin is on the piano. 

Rev. David A. Miller has served the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax as the senior minister since 2015. Before coming to UUCF, Rev. Miller was the settled minister of the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Fellowship of San Dieguito in Southern California since 2009. David was raised Jewish in the Skokie/Evanston area. Before he was called to the ministry, David spent more than 25 years in executive management, strategic planning, marketing, business development, and fundraising with private sector and non-profit organizations. He also served Unitarian Universalism as a member of the Standing on the Side of Love National Creative Advisory Team.

Upcoming Services

7/26/2026 – Nellie Eastman, What’s Your Story?

8/2/2026 – Rev. Jules Taylor, Dreamers

8/9/2026 – Dr. Elizabeth Mace, Sounds of Silence

8/16/2026 – Ryland Rich, Imperceptible Song