This service will include a blessing of our congregational record created by search committee. The message will be about past and future; attendance is the present we give ourselves.

To attend by Zoom, click on this link: uuberks.org/zoom-worship. (If this is the first time you’re using zoom, you may be prompted to download a launcher app).

To connect by phone (audio only):
   1) Dial the phone number: 1-646-558-8656
   2) When prompted for the “Meeting ID”, enter: 921 4271 5512#
   3) When prompted for the “Participant ID”, enter: #

Please plan to arrive or log on by 10:20-10:25 am to enjoy the gathering music, and, for those on zoom, to establish a connection before worship is scheduled begins. Zoom participant mics are muted throughout the service.

Full vaccination recommended: FUUBC encourages all those who can be vaccinated to be vaccinated, including boosters, as appropriate.

Take action to protect yourself from Covid-19 based on local risk conditions.

Feel free to wear a mask anytime.

This Weekend:

• This month’s story is I Wonder, words by Annaka Harris from Soul Matters resource subscription.

• Soul Matters Shares “Our theme this month is The Gift of Mystery and so we explore with a mother and daughter taking a walk, exploring mysteries for everyone to wonder about together!”

• I Wonder, Read Aloud

• Find the book at your local library. 

SUNDAY

9:30 AM : Adult RE 

• In Person: chalice house craft room

• Faith Formation in December – The Gift of Mystery: We explore Textbooks in American Public Schools.

• One of the goals of the Adult RE program is to get to know each other better.  What fascinating people sit around our table and how much we have to learn from each other.  There’s a place for you at our table.

• email Ginny Chudgar for more info (see directory for address)

• Onsite Only 

9:30 AM: Children’s RE: The Gifts of Our Faith – 2 classes

Elementary Ages: 

• Lower elementary: kids space cozy room

  • The Gift of Mystery of Our Amazing World: playing with scratch art – what will appear?

• Upper Elementary: social hall meeting room

  • The Gift of Mystery – noticing our mysterious world

  • *** Please dress warmly as we plan to be outside for a portion of the morning  

10:30- Worship Service- All Ages

We meet together to sing, to reflect, and to explore our world. 

How to make visual art directed by breath 

• Coloring Sheet: How Could Anyone – coloring pages set

• Use a printed or hand labyrinth to find renewal as you attend worship this morning. Here’s a labyrinth you can print out and trace.  Labyrinth Printable

• Practice your Searching and Creative skills with A Challenge to get from one heart to the other Maze

10:30 – 12 Youth Group:  

Grades 7th – 12: session with Carol Orts and her over 80 years of living Unitarian Universalism

** due to holiday/winter break – we meet again on Dec 12th. Next week

Monday – Thursday 

Weekly posts on our covenanted RE Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/UUBerks.RE.page/?ref=share
check out our Remind classroom.
If you need to signup link here: remind.com/join/refuucbc

Join Rev Amy  this Saturday, December 2nd at 2pm as she plans a Yule ceremony and discusses the formations of a CUUPS (Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans) chapter at UU Berks.
Can’t make it person? Join us on zoom
https://zoom.us/j/98646414454

Join us on Monday 12/4 @ 7:00pm via zoom for our Contemplative Companions when we will explore ‘moments of mystery’ together. For further information or to receive the zoom link, contact Nadine at njw1258@hotmail.com

As a community, we have been thinking and talking about what we hope and expect our next called minister will do. Now it is time for us to begin asking who our next called minister might be – and who are we ready for them to be?

To help us recognize our own biases in answering

this question, we need everyone’s input on this anonymous survey:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScm47Hu9QG1uLK9npoTSBU83RH9RrTvj8wMcMK82ELkODXxtw/viewform

We also strongly encourage you to register and join us for a two part Breaking Barriers, Building Beliefs Workshop

• Friday December 1^st 7-8:30pm (via zoom or in person)  https://zoom.us/j/91564826998
• Saturday December 2^nd, 9:30-11am (via zoom) https://zoom.us/j/97718055810

If you can attend some, but not all, please attend what you can! Please sign up at the link below

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0F45A5A92DA5FA7-45822914-breaking

– “To Sing Is To Pray Twice.” – however you pray, however you find your center and connect with something larger than yourself.  Let UUBerks, be a place where we connect through song.

The next few months have some really wonderful singing scheduled ahead!  Let us know you’re interested in sharing your voice

Email director.music@uuberks.org with any questions you have Visit

https://uuberks.org/Sing

This month we’re gearing up for the pageant on Dec 17th. Weather you love to deliver lines or deliver behind the scenes, we have a roll for you!!

• Dec 3rd:  We’re holding an interest session for this year’s pageant.  Please join Rev Amy in her office after worship. You will meet for a few minutes to get a taste of what this year’s pageant is all about!
• Dec 10th:  For kids in the pageant – while the adults attend the congregational meeting, join Ebee for a pageant prep hour. Adults who are interested in participating – we’ll have a separate session for you.
• Dec 17th: Pageant morning!

FUUBC is part of the Giant charitable grocery scrip program that gives 10% of all gift cards sold back to our church. You can purchase cards as needed or sign up for a monthly gift card order that will be sent directly to your home the first week of each month.

When you receive your order you will also receive a return envelope to mail your check to the church. Checks can also be dropped in the Gerber room drop box or in the plate collection. Checks should be made out to FUUBC with giant card in the memo line.

If you would like to purchase Giant cards please return the form below to Melissa at office@uuberks.org. One time cards can also be purchased from Melissa at coffee hour twice a month.

Giant cards are available in $50 and $100 increments.

Giant Card Form

The gift of mystery … is it a gift?  For some, mystery can be frustrating or confusing.  Why won’t this work?  Whatever the “this” is?  WHAT do I do about…?  Whatever the “about” is.

People in our Unitarian Universalist faith this past General Assembly found it imperative that we honor the mystery and wonder around us as a direct source of inspiration.  They added it back into our inspiration section of article II.

I was playing with my young nephew the other day and witnessed his frustration with mystery when he was trying to put a puzzle together.  Over and over again he was trying to fit a piece in that was just not working.

But what if we turned the piece? What if it didn’t fit the way he wanted it to?  Ah yes a quarter turn and it clicked right into where it was supposed to go.  You see sometimes we solve our mystery, our question, by asking another question.

Such a simple solution for a mystery that felt bigger than he could explore before! Sometimes mysteries are meant to be solved and sometimes they’re meant to be danced with.  But no matter what kind of mystery it is – wondering – revealing in the mystery, asking the next question, is often way more enjoyable than feeling stuck in it.

May your heart be opened, your spirit renewed, and your life transformed by experiences of mystery and wonder in this season

Your’s in Song,

Ebee Bromley

by nadine j. smet-weiss
spiritual director

minutes
that last
for hours
and hours
that pass
in a moment
years of
yesterdays
that show up
unexpectedly
today
tomorrows
that never
arrive
seasons passing
in the span
of a split
second
all we have to live
is the ever present
now