Rev. Sophia Lyons preaching, with Rev. Kyle Belmont, Charlyn Bethell, Missy Shay, Guy Urban, and the FPW Band!
This Sunday is our annual Flower Communion worship service where we will ritualize the giving and receiving of flowers to honor our community’s flourishing, as well as the hope we have for a world where all living beings flourish. We will celebrate the abundance of life and love through music, dance, prayer, and story as we come together to marvel in this ravishing system of aliveness we Unitarian Universalists are committed to protecting and celebrating!
Rev. Sophia Lyons with Rev. Kyle Belmont, Charlyn Bethell, Jean Gauthier, Beth Tappan-deFrees, Guy Urban, and the FPW Choir!
We will celebrate our LGBTQIA+ siblings this Sunday through word, prayer, song, blessing, and LOTS of rainbows! This worship service will celebrate the flourishing of Pride, center queer voices, and invite us to answer the Call of Love. Revs. Sophia and Kyle will offer Rainbow Blessings in front of church before worship, our Safe Congregation Committee has lots of swag for all who want it, and your choir will sing of Celebration. If you haven’t been at church for awhile–this service is calling your name. Let’s let Love Guide Us home to one another this Sunday. See you at church–and wear your Rainbow Pride if you have it!
Shining through our year of Intention, and all the monthly themes, I see our First Parish choir. Belonging to the choir is to embody compassion, abundance, and courage as we notice with awe the rituals that awaken us to be flourishing together. (All underlined words are monthly themes this year.) To sing together is to engage your spirit and singers’ awareness of the singing of those around them elevates that spirituality. Shared spirituality is shared ministry. Shared ministry is looking...
Happy June Church Family! Summer is almost here and with this comes a shift in rhythm at First Parish. Our month’s theme of Flourishing Together reminds me that all of us need rhythm shifts to thrive. My personal flourishing depends upon doing the work I love with you, and also putting it down from time to time. Following our Flower Communion worship service on June 21st, I won’t lead worship until September. Your spiritual flourishing on Sundays will come in the varied, soulful worship...
The amount of love that surrounds a person when they are ordained is astonishing. I mean this not just during the service itself, nor limited to the laying on of hands with all that intense focus, but also leading up to the day and the return to routines following. And if you are wondering if anything changes during an ordination, any palpable felt sense, I can report that there is. And this change relates to the love that surrounds a person when they are ordained. Because when you are...
Rev. Sophia preaching, with Kyle Belmont, Charlyn Bethell, Lynn Bratley, Allison Hewett, and Guy Urban.
We will close out this month’s theme of Rituals by focusing on the transformative power of appreciation and gratitude in a community. Whether you are new to FPW or not, serve as a leader or not, we all come bearing gifts that deserve honoring. This Sunday we will ritualize the thanking of one another for the gifts freely shared with this community–seen and unseen. See you at church!
From Mass Turnpike (I - 90): Take exit 17, (Newton -Watertown).
Follow signs for Watertown. On Galen Street, go east towards Watertown. Just before you cross the Charles River, you will join Rte. 16. After you cross the Charles, move to one of the two left hand turn lanes in Watertown Square, and then turn left on Rte. 20 (Main St.). This is heading towards Waltham.
Take your second right onto Church Street (the Armenian Library and Museum is on the corner of Main and Church Sts.). The First Parish is one block upon your right. Turn right at Summer Street to reach the parking lot.
Public Transportation
From Harvard Square take #71 bus down Mt. Auburn Street. Get off at Dunkin Donuts approaching Watertown Square. Summer St. is on the right, follow for two blocks until you see church on your left.
Parking
There is a parking lot adjacent to the church. It is available for event parking in the evening after 4:00 p.m. and on weekends after 1:00 p.m., but NOT at other times.
