Spring For Change Worship Resources

2021 Virtual Worship Resources
for Earth Day & Spring for Change

This year, UU Ministry for Earth is producing a robust and beautiful virtual worship service for use in full or in part by participating congregations this Spring, as part of Spring for Change: A Season of Sacred Activism. Resources are now available, sign up below!

Watch the Earth Sunday Worship Live Stream 

The 2021 Virtual Worship Service will be livestreamed on Facebook (no account required) for free on Sunday, April 25, 2021 at 3pm PT / 4 MT / 5 CT / 6 ET.

Service Details

Theme & Description:
“Pathways to Healing & Regeneration”
When you imagine pathways to personal, social and ecological healing and regeneration, what do you see? Who is with you on your journey? What transforms and gives way to new beginnings? Who and/or what are you accountable to along the way? Join UU Ministry for Earth and The Reverend Yadenee Hailu for a special Earth Sunday worship service exploring these questions in a collective journey on the pathways to healing and regeneration. This program will include a special collection for the UU Ministry for Earth – donations are encouraged and received with deep gratitude.

Sermon Reflection by Rev. Yadenee Hailu
Rev. Yadenee Hailu (she/her) is an ethiopian american, black woman based in Tulsa, OK, USA. She is a writer, speaker, facilitator and project manager. Her community ministry, blk earth, is a love letter to the earth and black people inviting all carbon life to return to rest and right-relationship as it’s baseline. She believes life’s first mandate is to flourish and it’s second is to heal. This is the mission blk earth supports for persons who desire to curate a lifestyle of healing and to shape their relationships/community towards wholeness.

Two Virtual Choir Pieces!
The Spring for Change Virtual Choir performs amazing renditions of “Woyaya” (words and music by Loughty Amoa, Solomon Amarifo, Robert M. Bailey, Roy Bedeau, Francis T. Osei, Whendell K. Richardson, and Mac Tontoh) and “Hallelujah for the Earth” (words by UU musician Dana Clark, melody by Leonard Cohen). The virtual choir director is John Olin, from the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore. Sign up below to use one or both of these beautiful choir pieces during your Earth Day virtual worship service.

Format

The worship service is offered in two formats:

• Complete service: a video of the entire service, including all worship elements, will be available online to congregations to stream via the platform of their choice. 

• Individual worship elements: videos of elemental piece of the service will be available for congregations to choose from and integrate into their own liturgies. 

Timing

• All resources will be published on a password protected website by April 8 at 8:59 pm PT / 9:59 MT / 10:59 CT / 11:59 pm ET at the latest, and all who sign up will receive an email notice as soon as the resources are published.
  
• This service is being developed with “Earth Sunday” (April 18 or 25) in mind, but can be used on whatever Sunday works best for your congregation’s worship calendar, through May 23, 2021 (the last day of  Spring for Change – A Season of Sacred Activism)
  

Access

Register below to let us know you plan on participating in the Spring For Change worship at your congregation. You will receive a confirmation email letting you know your registration is complete, and another email once the videos are live. 

Cost

We are asking that congregations make a donation to UUMFE for this worship service resource, much like they would pay a guest worship leader and/or musician.

We recommend using the UU Ministers Association’s Scale of Professional Fees as a guide ($315 – small congregations; $350 – mid-sized congregations; $385 – large congregations). If such a donation is beyond the abilities of your congregation, please pay what you can. We encourage larger congregations with bigger budgets to donate more.

We also ask that your congregation dedicate a Sunday offering to UU Ministry For Earth on the day you use these materials. We will provide the invitation to the offering, as well as instructions about how to give, in the worship video(s).

If you commit to making a contribution to UUMFE in either or both of these ways, you will receive follow-up communication from us about how to complete your donations. Your generous contributions allow UUMFE to continue our shared ministry to create a better world rooted in environmental and climate justice.  We appreciate your congregation’s participation, and your generous support. 

We look forward to worshipping with you!

Sign Up Now!

Other Worship Readings & Resources

Selected Readings by Stephen Shick

This resource contains seven new unpublished works, as well as twelve selected readings from Stephen Shick’s two Skinner House publications: Be the Change: Poems, Prayers and Meditations for Peacemakers and Justice Seekers and Consider the Lilies.

Other Resources:

• UUMFE Worship & Inspiration page
• UUA WorshipWeb library

Taking a “Share the Plate” Donation

Many Unitarian Universalist congregations have a practice of sharing their Sunday offering with community organizations and groups: some congregations give away their entire offering one Sunday each month; others “split the plate” every Sunday and give half of the offering to a deserving cause.