Unfolding Faith: Sermons from Foothills Unitarian

Rev. Gretchen begins a new series: Rock Bottom Spirituality. Listen as Rev. Gretchen shares reflections from her own experiences of "rock bottom," including what happens when we try things we never thought would work - since, when the usual tools stop working, sometimes the next step is simply to start trying anyway. We have all faced that moment when you realize you can’t do it on your own. You’ve tried your tools. You’ve had the conversations. You’ve tried to think your way through it. But nothing shifts.  And you start to realize—I’m going to need help. Not just help with the tangible things, but the kind of help that connects you to something greater— something beyond what you can see, or imagine, or understand.

Guest minister Rev. Kelly Dignan explores low-barrier moments that pull us out of isolation and fear into connection and hope.  Alongside all the ways we intentionally build community, there can be small, effortless gatherings that emerge and create a reason to linger - in an airport, a fairy garden, on a driveway. 

What does it mean to have a secret inner world, where the secret isn't deception or dishonesty, but something you've chosen to tend on purpose? A space that belongs only to you?  So many of us are running on fumes right now. Burned out. Disconnected. Scrolling past each other. The great spiritual traditions have always known something about this. They've always invited people into the intentional cultivation of inner space. Not as escape. Not as hiding. But as practice. We invite you to listen to Rev. Sean teach us that tending to these inner worlds - tending to these signs of life that point the way to our deepest selves - doesn't actually pull us away from others but can lead to greater intimacy and connection. He might also hint at one of his "inner worlds" along the way. 

This Earth Day Sunday, we lean into the tension of the reality that so much of what fills us with wonder and gratitude can be temporary and fleeting. Together in an all-ages service we honor both the beauty and the ache of being alive. With shared ritual, and music from Christopher Watkins Lamb, we practice meeting the living world with reverence, honesty, and gratitude.

In hard times, pleasure is not frivolous. It is one of the ways we stay human. When the world is frightening, exhausting, or cruel, we can become cut off from our bodies, from joy, from appetite, from play, from beauty, from one another. We can start living only in vigilance, productivity, grief, or survival mode. Rev. Gretchen shares how she had to personally remind herself of this after an especially difficult week, and how important and meaningful it is to lean on one another to retain our humanity, especially when doing so doesn't feel possible. 

There is a kind of love that looks away. That holds up the beautiful parts and quietly ignores what's cracked underneath. But that kind of love doesn't hold. You cannot truly love what you refuse to see. Rev. Sean bring us a message this Easter about what it means to stay present with what is broken, to extend grace before anything makes sense, and to recognize the resurrection that is already happening in the ordinary moments most of us have been trained to overlook.

Rev. Elaine invites us to into the sacredness of subtraction. Love calls us into movement work in so many ways – and sometimes, not in the ways we’re expecting.  Could it be that seeking out rest, inconvenience, and social awkwardness are just what we need? Sounds…weird, wonderful and awful! Join us for an exploration of the less-discussed movement work that just might carry us through in the long haul.

Rev. Christopher Watkins Lamb invites us to channel our longing and deep imaginations to create the village that is our birthright.  We'll draw on Rev. Christopher's work as an eco-chaplain, musician, spiritual care practitioner, and lead Chaplain at Poudre Valley Hospital, and upon the wisdom of Susan Silk and Barry Goldman's "Ring Theory" of crisis response, to explore how to care for each other in disruptive, playful, and world-shaping fashion.

Join us in a very special conversation with Rev. Sean and Dr. Cori Wong, Experimental Public Philosopher and a member of our Fort Collins Community.  In her uniquely playful and creative style, Dr. Wong reminds us that movements for liberation ask us to follow the lead of those most impacted, and that the best followers are good learners. Together we'll ask ourselves: From whom do you learn? What are you willing to learn? How does what you learn inform what you choose to do? Dr. Wong is a dynamic and experimental public philosopher, educator, speaker, consultant, writer, and community builder known to bring creativity, humor, and authenticity to all facets of her work.  With her personable, playful, and expansive style, Dr. Wong shows how to make meaning of complex ideas and real feelings that are inherent to movements for collective liberation. Learn more about her work at coriwong.com

What does it really take to join the Movement? Rev. Gretchen explores the difference between casual activism and accountable neighboring — and why real transformation asks more of us than good intentions. In Unitarian Universalist language, this is covenant: making promises in love, staying in relationship, and helping tend the whole. If you’ve been longing for deeper belonging, wondering what this moment asks of you, or feeling frustrated by how slow change can be, this service is for you.

"Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty!" Even for the most polite and least confrontational among us, love can call on us to disrupt and create tension in service to justice.  Rev. Elaine Aron-Tenbrink leads us in an exploration of where our collective power lies and how we might create “good trouble” together.

What are you tending? Are you squash, or beans, or corn? Does gardening align with fascist ideology? Rev. Sean tells a story about an overheard conversation at a botanical garden, that provides a winking insight into how we might find our place, our role, in The Movement to resist the authoritarian breakthrough that is happening right now. 

"It's okay to change your mind." We’re living through a critical moment, when democracy is being tested, as is our capacity to see one another as fully human across real difference.  A few weeks ago, a group of our ordained and lay ministers traveled to Minneapolis thinking we were going to help them. Instead, they helped us - offering an immersive learning experience in how to respond with our values at the center: courage + humility, strategy + creativity, care + resolve. This sermon kicks off a 8 week series where we will practice what it means to become neighbors in a deeper way, building spiritual resilience, making meaning together, and learning the practices a movement for courageous love requires.  

At the recent protest at the Minneapolis airport, clergy knelt on frozen ground, prepared to be arrested… and prayed the Lord’s Prayer in unison. One UU minister told Rev. Gretchen that, for the first time in her life, this prayer felt exactly right. How would the words have felt for you? Comforting? Curious? Off-putting? Empty? This Sunday we will explore our relationship to Jewish & Christian scripture and how it relates to us as Unitarian Universalists in this moment - what we can reclaim, refuse, and carry forward in the work of courageous love? How can we turn these texts from weapons used for division, into tools for community?

In this moment, we are called to inhabit one of the most ancient stories: the story of being good neighbors to each other, in love and in protection.  Rev. Elaine explores how being a neighbor is more than a moral concept—it’s an ancient, relational practice that calls us to listen with humility, cross lines of difference with compassion, and remember our deep interconnection with one another.  "Won't you be my neighbor?"

There is an old story that has a hold on us, and it needs our cooperation to stay alive. The old story that says "nothing changes". The one that says "stay in your lane". It can't survive without you. Which also means, it starts to break the moment you stop repeating it.  This message from Rev. Sean is an invitation to practice. Not heroism, but faithfulness in the struggle. Small moments of being willing to tell the right story wrong. To say the right thing though your voice may shake and crack. So that when it matters most, when your neighbor needs you, when the stakes are real, you've already been exercising the muscle.  Courage isn't something you find alone. It's something we practice together.

This Sunday we honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and bear witness to the many layers of story in the present moment. Rev. Gretchen along with members of the congregation, weave the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with first-person accounts from the Civil Rights era, testimony from the present moment, scripture, poetry and song. You will hear the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Claudette Colvin, Carin Mrotz, Mamie Zwadie King- Chalmers, Matt Suarez, Hollis Watkins, Aurora Levins Morales, Susan Raffo, Rev. Ashley Horan, The Gospel of Matthew, and Carol, a current resident of Minneapolis.  You can find a full transcript of the readings and watch the whole service here: https://foothillsuu.churchcenter.com/episodes/597762

Rev. Sean opens the "New Story. New You" series with “Finding Our Way in the Dark.” A good story can inspire someone to action, provide hope to get you through a hard time, or help us empathize with an unfamiliar perspective. But a well told story can also dehumanize, sew doubt, or spread fear. "The thing about stories, is they don’t just describe what is, they prescribe what’s next."  Listen as Rev. Sean reflects on the power stories have to shape how we experience the world, the ways we view the people and events around us, to what we believe the future holds. What story do you have inside of you?

We must release before we can receive. We open the new year with our annual Fire Ceremony—a powerful ritual of letting go. Before the new direction becomes clear, there is always a threshold: a space where the old stories, habits, and burdens must be set down so that something truer can take root. Through fire, reflection, and shared intention, we will name what no longer serves us and create room for what is waiting to emerge. Come ready to loosen your grip, to trust the unknown, and to begin again. If you would like to participate in the ritual element, we recommend you gather the following items before listening:  Small piece of paper  Pen/pencil Bowl of Water  Stone or other heavy object  There will be prompts to write, followed by music. The music is your cue to take the paper you've written on, and put it in the water, symbolically or literally destroying it. 

Between the noise of holidays, pause to listen to that still small voice within. Community Minister and Hospice Chaplain Rev. Roger Butts will guide us into the contemplative practice of listening—listening to our own hearts, to one another, and to the call of the holy. In the quiet few days after Christmas and before the new year, we’ll make space to hear what we might otherwise miss: the wisdom that speaks only when we are still.

Joy is not something we force into being, nor is it a reward waiting on the other side of certainty or peace. Rev. Gretchen reminds us this Holiday Season, that joy comes to us as an invitation, as a gentle summons to pause, to turn our gaze toward what is tender and new, and let ourselves be interrupted by wonder. Adoration is the courage to give our full attention to life as it is unfolding, to kneel before the sacred beauty that appears even in fragile forms. Joy does not deny the darkness, but shines within it—quiet, embodied, and faithful—asking only that we draw near and allow ourselves to be changed.

There is no growth without rest. No healing. No liberation. Rev. Gretchen invites us to rest in the darkness, and reminds us that the light can return. She’ll explore what becomes possible when we stop forcing growth and trust the hidden transformations happening beneath the surface.   In winter, roots strengthen, bodies recover, and the world prepares for beginning again. On this Solstice Sunday, we turn toward the wisdom of the longest night—the sacred invitation to surrender, renew, and let the earth do its quiet work within us. 

What we ache for reveals our values, our wounds, and our hopes for the world. And yet longing carries real risks. It can narrow our vision; distract us from the present; it can try our patience and make us think we have more control than we do. This Sunday, we will explore what it means to practice longing faithfully, and how desire can be our teacher and our guide in the turning.

What are we waiting for—and what are we postponing that’s ours to do now? In a time of so much struggle and uncertainty, how do we honor the real ache for things to get better without slipping into resignation or deferring our own power? How do we discern the difference between the waiting that is wise and the waiting that keeps us from living? Drawing on the ancient idea of a “messianic hope” and the wisdom of kairos—the right time— we will explore the spiritual practice of waiting faithfully, living in the paradox of both patience and urgency.  

Rev. Elaine and Sophia Miller lead a meditation based on a loving-kindness meditation, adapted from the work of Sister Karma Kechog Palmo, a nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.   

Heroes can feel out of reach—like the kind of people who have more courage, more clarity, or less to lose. But what if it’s not about being extraordinary? What if the difference is just practice—small, consistent choices that shape who we become and how we show up when it matters most? This week's message is an invitation to stop waiting for the moment and start preparing for it together, drawing our lines, building trust, and learning the kind of courage that doesn’t come from going it alone, but from rising side by side.

We’ve all been there—someone we care about falls down a rabbit hole of “alternative facts.” You try to explain, to reason, to send the article that will finally convince them. But somehow, the more facts you share, the deeper they dig in. So what’s really going on when facts fail? Why do smart, caring people come to believe things that make no sense? And how can connection—rather than correction—bring us back to truth? Join Rev. Gretchen this week, as we explore how belonging shapes belief, and what it means to stay human, curious, and kind in an age of misbelief.

In a world that keeps demanding we either smooth over our differences or cut each other off completely, Rev. Sean's message explores a harder, more honest way forward—where love isn’t control or avoidance, but the daily work of staying rooted in your convictions while making space for others to be fully themselves. What if the tension we’re trying so hard to eliminate is actually where love—and transformation—lives?

In a world where fear often masquerades as wisdom, this message invites you to treat your discomfort not as a red light, but as data—pointing to where love is asking more of you. Rev. Sean draws on personal experience to help differentiate between real threat and personal unease, and choosing to cross the bridge of courageous love—even when it’s hard, even when you’re scared—to have fellowship with those on the other side.

This past Sunday was our cherished annual Service of Remembrance, where we came together to honor loved ones who have passed by bringing their photos or objects into our sacred space as we built a shared altar.  Rev. Elaine asked Foothills Member Karen Wilken to talk about the sudden loss of her son, Oliver, and her journey with grief.

You’ve spent years believing that if you just told the truth clearly enough, people would see it—but now that logic feels broken, and it’s breaking something in you, too. When the old tools stop working, faith invites us to grieve what’s gone and still step forward, learning to speak truth in a way that reshapes the ground we stand on.

We want to believe heaven is already here, on earth. In beauty, and nature; in generosity and creativity; and in human goodness that still surprises us in its abundance. But then....we read the headlines, we feel the heartbreak, and we experience the harm - and all of these ideas feel hollow. So, as Eleanor Shellstrop (from TV's The Good Place) might say....is this the bad place? And if so, how do we live faithfully here - in what Parker Palmer calls the "tragic gap,"  between the world as it is and the world as it could be? These are the questions at the heart of this sermon from Rev. Gretchen.

Life shifts under our feet in ways we didn’t ask for— relationships strain, identities evolve, and structures and expectations that once felt right can start to feel confining.  It’s easy to mistake the pain of breaking open, growing, and becoming as a sign that something is wrong.   This message from Rev. Elaine invites us to discern whether the strain we feel is the cost of becoming or the cost of staying too small.

What happens after we mess up—after we hurt someone, fail ourselves, or cause harm, intentionally or not?  We can either spiral into shame—or we can turn toward growth. Shame disconnects us from belonging, but growth deepens it. This Sunday, Rev. Gretchen Haley continues our Broken | Open series with wisdom from the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Together, we’ll explore how to find meaning and belonging—even after we fall short. ✨ A creative story for kids and youth ✨ Gorgeous music to ground and lift us ✨ Belonging, even in our brokenness

Lament is the cry of the heart that says: “This pain matters.” It doesn’t try to fix, defend, or explain. It witnesses. It gives voice to the grief, anger, confusion, and sorrow we so often carry in silence. Across traditions - from the Hebrew psalms to Buddhist stories, from African American spirituals to modern poetry - lament has always been a way to be fully present in life as it really is. Together, we’ll learn how lament can connect us, comfort us, and remind us: whatever you’re carrying, you don’t carry it alone. You can expect a space for all-out whining and collective sighing, maybe even some stomping of feet. And of course powerful music from Julie Koenig the whole way through it all. Most of all, the invitation to both share and witness all that we are holding, in community. Let's do this, together. Link to Book of Laments: https://simplebooklet.com/bookoflaments#page=1

Feeling entirely lost? Confused? Sometimes, right when the map fails, the real path begins. This Sunday: bewilderment, whirling, and the possibility that being lost can be the place where we are ultimately found.  Rev. Gretchen will be preaching, Christopher Watkins Lamb and Julie Koenig will be leading music, Rev. Elaine will be reading a wild poem about a crab, and many of us will be twirling. Maybe including you? Hope to see you there! 

Do you ever get the feeling that you are having an experience NO ONE could ever understand? Something too hard, too embarrassing, too messy....these feelings can make us feel so alone, and so isolated. But what we have learned (especially those of us whose job it is to meet people in these challenging moments) is that these moments that feel unique to you, are often the exact things that other people are struggling with too.  This Sunday, Rev. Elaine shares from her experience as our lead minister for pastoral care to remind us that the place where you feel most alone is often your place of deepest belonging.  

You don’t become a different person overnight—but staying in long-haul relationships has a way of slowly confronting who you were and calling out who you’re becoming. This message from Rev. Gretchen looks at how deep, lasting connections reshape us over time in ways quick fixes never could.

This Sunday we share a re-imagined and reinvigorated Water Ceremony ritual for all ages. This tradition was born from UU women 45 years ago who got tired of being told how to worship and decided to create their own ceremony, and this year we take up their mantle as we reinvent this piece of our living tradition in our own way. We explore what it means to be dammed up and what it feels like when those dams finally break, practicing the radical act of letting barriers come down. We'll look at the Klamath River, where the largest dam removal in U.S. history just happened. After a century of being blocked, salmon are swimming home. The river remembers. We're made of that same stubborn, remembering water, and its gifts are also ours: The wildness of the water is a current alive in within you, within us, flowing in a way that needs no permission, no apologies, no restraint. The power of the water is ours, together - a force within us like a river that's been gathering behind a dam of lies for decades, finally free to carve new channels through everything that tries to contain us. Wild belonging, as innate as the belonging of a river in its bed of stone and soil, is ours to claim when we only remember that we’ve always been part of this current.

We gather to celebrate and honor the extraordinary Eleanor VanDeusen, who is retiring after 26 years of ministry in religious education and family ministry at Foothills.  Revs. Gretchen, Sean, and Elaine, along with guest minister Rev. Justin Schroeder guide us. Rev. Justin grew up at Foothills and worked with Eleanor as a youth coordinator.  He reflects on both Eleanor, and also on what our children, youth, and families need from the church now, as truth refuses to be still, continuing to unfold and reveal new understandings and possibilities. This Sunday we also bless backpacks for all our kids and school employees about to start their new school year! Plus, we’re joined by musical guest Adam Podd!

In these days of fear, we must keep asking: what sacrifices must we make to make belonging real? Not just pretty words, but actual bodies fed, actual doors opened, actual love lived out loud. That's the work. That's the fight. Building a belonging so fierce, so wide, so stubbornly inclusive that even our enemies find themselves home.

The world is so beautiful - and in the beauty we see the fullness of what is broken. Our living practice invites us to answer the call of beauty, which is justice. This Sunday as part of our Beyond Belief series, The Rev. Mary Katherine Morn joins us at Foothills to dive into that invitation - that tug toward wholeness, even (especially) when everything feels broken - and the tools that love and beauty offer us as we hold this work in community.  The Rev. Mary Katherine Morn has led the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) as President and Lead Executive Officer since 2018, and has been in faith-based leadership and justice work for over 30 years in Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, and far beyond.

Join us as we explore the spiritual practice of hope-making—where faith isn't belief or proof, but the stubborn insistence that we belong to each other, and we're not letting go. In June, Rev. Sean addressed UU General Assembly, where the Liberal Religious Educators Association asked him to share how we approach social change here at Foothills. How we do the work when everything feels like it's breaking. In this service, as part of our Beyond Belief series, Sean brings pieces of that sermon home. Because we need to remember how to make hope follow us when the way forward disappears under our feet. How to trust that what emerges through raw, real relationship will transform us through trust, rupture, and repair into something the world desperately needs. Rev. Sean Neil-Barron // July 13, 2025

In our series that starts this Sunday, Beyond Belief: The Living Practice of Unitarian Universalism, we aren’t offering easy answers or spiritual platitudes. We're asking, what if faith isn't about believing the right things, but about living with courage, curiosity, and radical love? This Sunday, join Rev. Elaine as we begin the series "Beyond Belief: The Living Practices of Unitarian Universalism" with a dive into what we really mean when we say “everyone is worthy of love and belonging, without exception,” and how we got there as Unitarian Universalists. Come for the questions that won't let you go.  Stay for the living practice of our faith that emerges through the struggle. Rev. Elaine Aron-Tenbrink // July 6, 2025

Allowing yourself to receive information that explodes nearly everything to which you’ve dedicated your life takes tremendous courage. Rev. Shawna Ambrose knew she had to do it, even though it meant letting go of a proudly held identity, a way of understanding the world, a mode of serving the greater good with pride, and connections with family and community. Witness Shawna’s story of military service transforming into a powerful commitment to the anti-war movement.   June 29, 2025

Sometimes, life in religious community can feel like an experience of exile in the exact place where we most deeply yearn to belong.  Roger Butts, Unitarian Universalist minister, shares his own journey of coming to peace with his Christian background.  Telling of a journey through shame and alienation, Roger shares how he finally found a way to living with his heart wide open. June 22, 2025

June 15, 2025

There are moments that cleave our lives into before and after. For some of us, those moments arrive gently, like dawn breaking slowly over familiar landscape. For others, they crash in like lightning—sudden, illuminating, impossible to unsee. In this installment of our Tell It Like It Is series, Jamal Skinner, founder and Executive Director of the Fort Collins Cultural Enrichment Center, shares one of those lightning moments with us: the day he realized that teachers and people in authority were treating him differently because he's Black. We know that undoing racism isn't just political work or social justice work—it's deeply spiritual work. It requires us to confront the lie that some people are worth more than others, to dismantle the systems that separate us from our fundamental interconnectedness. When we work to create spaces where every person can flourish in their full humanity, we're participating in the sacred act of building beloved community. June 8, 2025

We crave growth and transformation – and yet, we will go to great lengths to avoid actual change. We want to know one another more deeply – but when someone else’s truth challenges our worldview, our first move is often to start building a defense of our own position. Join Rev. Elaine in leading with curiosity and holding your certainties a little more softly as as Lucrecia Medrano, local leader and co-founder of the harm reduction and recovery groups at the Yarrow Collective, offers us the gift of her truth – a story of recovery from addiction, of liberation and de-colonizing recovery.  When Lucrecia found that a Western model of recovery also snuffed out the spark in her heart, she kept following her inner wisdom — even when it diverged from the advice of the experts.  Lucrecia found healing and liberation on a path that defied conventional norms, yet made all the difference. After taking in her story, Lucrecia joins Rev. Elaine for a time of conversation and reflection.  *Lucrecia Medrano (she/her), a proud first-generation Latinx woman, a wife, and mother of three, is a liberatory harm reductionist rooted in culturally sacred practices and psychedelic medicine.  Lucrecia creates transformative spaces for drug users, people of color, those in recovery and those seeking liberation. She co-founded all harm reduction groups and recovery groups at Yarrow Collective, and is a certified Peer Support Specialist devoted to decolonized healing and collective freedom.* June 1, 2025