Future Visions, Future Selves
In worship we will devote at least one Sunday a month to some aspect of the future. We will ask questions like: What does the future hold? How might we prepare for it?
Through study and reflection, we will provide the opportunity for our members and friends to go deeper. The minister’s book group will meet twice a month and focus on a text that helps us to think about the future. Five times over the course of the year we will hold a workshop with a religious leader, scholar or community practitioner that challenges us to consider some aspect of the future. Look for information about the workshops throughout the course of the year.
Check our our 2024-2025 program book, where all of the dates below can be seen PLUS other programs that the church offers.
CLICK HERE
September
Introduction to
Future Visions, Future Selves
The Dawn of Everything: Reimagining the Past to Reimagine the Future
Worship:
Sunday, September 15th
Introduction to Future Visions, Future Selves
Sunday, September 22nd
“Future Visions, Future Selves” starts with a sermon on September 15th to launch the program. This is followed by a sermon on September 22nd inspired by David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything in which we will explore the nature of freedom and human possibility.
September 10th, 7:00 PM
September 24th, 7:00 PM
Book to Read:
David Graeber and David Wengrow,
The Dawn of Everything (selections)
Worship:
Sunday, October 13th
Is society on the cusp of a “Great Turning,” as Joanna Macy has claimed? How do we prepare ourselves for a great moral awakening and spiritual revolution? What is the nature of revolution? Since it is a political season, we’ll focus on this question from a political perspective and take adrienne maree brown as our guide.
October 22nd 7:00 PM
Book to Read
adrienne maree brown
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
Worship:
Sunday, November 10th
Whoever wins the 2024 presidential election, the country and the world will remain at a crucial turning point. New technology, rising inequality, the climate crisis will continue to shape what ita means to practice democracy. We’ll focus the month on imagining a more participatory democracy.
November 12th, 7:00 PM
Books to Read
John Clark,
Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community
Worship:
Sunday, December 15th
During the winter holiday season we will focus on an issue that impacts many people in our community: religious trauma. For those that wrestle with it, working to heal from it, in a congregation like ours, can be a way to prepare for a more wholistic spiritual future.
December 17th, 7:00 PM
Books to Read:
Laura Anderson,
When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion
Worship:
Sunday, January 12th
“Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die,” wrote Unitarian Universalist theologian Forrest Church. And so, we will start 2025 with a focus on that most religious of topics: death.
January 28th, 7:00 PM
Book to Read:
Elizabeth Alexander,
The Light of the World
Worship:
What comes after death? Does some part of us continue after we have shed our mortal coils? Religious communities have helped people to wrestle with questions like these since the dawn of human history.
March Programs
The River is Our Bond:
Mary Brave Bird
Sicangu Lakota writer and activist
Worship:
Does humanity’s future lie amongst the stars? Or shall we remain forever terrestrial bound? What will happen to how we conceive of our selves and our species if we ever become interplanetary?
Worship:
For Earth month we will explore the questions: What do we owe future generations? How will our actions impact the future of the planet? What if future generations had the same rights as those now living?
April 29th, 7:00 PM
Books to Read:
Kim Stanley Robinson,
The Ministry for the Future
May Programs
Ghosts in the Machine
Worship:
Artificial intelligence has the potential to change human society. How will it change religious communities? Will it impact how we understand the nature of humanity? Of God? Of being itself?
May 20th, 7:00 PM
Books to Read:<
Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan,
AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future
Worship:
We close the year’s programs with reflections on the future of religion. What does it hold? How will it impact our community?
June 17th, 7:00 PM
Books to Read:
Roberto Mangabeira Unger,
The Religion of the Future
Past Programs:
Lives of the Spirit
Each month, we discussed the spiritual biography of a different religious leader; covenant groups provided an opportunity to reflect on the significance of their lives; a book group engaged one of the leader’s seminal works; then a lecture or workshop brought a specialist on the individual to engage and enlighten us.
