“Living Our Faith” – September 20, 2026

Rev. Sophia Lyons preaching, with Rev. Kyle Belmont, Charlyn Bethell, Laura Horn, and Guy Urban.

We will dive into our year’s theme of Living Our Faith by working to understand what faith means as Unitarian Universalists, and what ‘living it’ demands of us. We will also celebrate some good beginnings by blessing our kids’ backpacks,  learning our new children’s processional song, “Know that You are Loved,” and singing a hymn out of our new hymnal Sing Out Love called “Ours is a Living Faith.” Bring your griefs, bring your longings, bring a friend. Come to church and let’s be faithful, together.

Reading: The following reading comes to us from Universalist Rev. Olympia Brown, who was the first woman to be fully ordained by a denomination in the US, in the year 1863. She was one of a small handful of original suffragists who lived long enough to vote in 1920, the year in which she gave her last sermon, entitled “Stand by this Faith,” in Racine, Wisconsin, at the age of 85.

Let us listen to some of her words from that sermon:

Dear Friends, stand by this faith. 

Work for it and sacrifice for it.

There is nothing in all the world so important to you as to be loyal to this faith which has placed before you the loftiest ideals,

which has comforted you in sorrow,

strengthened you for noble duty,

and made the world beautiful for you.

Do not demand immediate results but rejoice that you are worthy to be entrusted with this great message and that you are strong enough to work for a great true principle without counting the cost.

Go on finding ever new applications of these truths and new enjoyments in their contemplation.

Stand by this faith.