Enjoy this annual tradition of putting our young people front and center, lifting up our hope for the future and having fun in worship.

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.

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

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

This Weekend:

• This week/month story is I Wonder, words by Annaka Harris from SoulMatters 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 1st floor

• Faith Formation in Mystery: chosen by frequent attendees, but open to new combers alike.  Get on the adult-re@googlegroups.com for more details.  

• 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 Mystery of The Returning Light: celebrating winter solstice

• Upper Elementary: social hall meeting room

  • May You Survive And Thrive: learning Blue Boat Home and more about endangered species 

10:30- Worship Service- All Ages

We meet together to sing, to reflect, and to explore our world. ** This Week Pageant **

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 – 11:30 Youth Group:  

Grades 7th – 12: next meets Jan 7th. 

10:30 – 11:30 Kid Congregational Life:  

This week help with ushering.  Passing out the baskets.

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

The UUA will be offering a Seeds for the New Year service. 
What seeds are you planting for the new year?

How are you weaving your magic into your relationships with others?

How can we center beauty and goodness and love in all that’s ahead?

These questions are at the heart of the homily, story, and other worship materials being offered by WorshipWeb and Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association in a worship collection available at the link below.

https://www.uua.org/worship/lab/seeds-new-year

Happy New Year from UU Berks!

We are in need of cookie donations and some helpful elves for our Christmas Eve coffee hour. If you can donate or help out, please sign up below.
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0F45A5A92DA5FA7-46714008-christmas

Please join us on February 4th, to hear Rastabla Hebron, a wonderful, dynamic speaker, share about the life and journey of Harriet Tubman.  Rastabla is a trainer and guide, coming to us from The Harriet Tubman Museum in Cape May, New Jersey. He will lead us on a journey beginning with the African Diaspora, through the Abolitionist Movement, the Underground Railroad and the life of Harriet Tubman.  We will explore her childhood, adolescence and adulthood, and the key figures she encountered along the way.  Prepare your mind to be intrigued and enriched on this incredible, thought-provoking experience!

Please register by Feb 1st through this link:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0F45A5A92DA5FA7-46734611-theincredible

Lunch 12- 1 pm

Presentation 1-2:30 pm

This event is being sponsored by First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County and Calvary United Church of Christ. It will take place at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County,416 Franklin St., Reading, PA 19602

– “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

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

Ah, mystery. I think of mystery novels and movies. I think of the Mysteries of
Scripture. There are all kinds of mysteries…..but mostly, this year, at this
congregation, I think of the Mystery of The Search.

Who will apply to be the next minister? Who will become a pre-candidate and
then the candidate? Who will UU berks vote on as their next settled minister?
As we all wait for ministers to apply, beginning in January, we are entrenched in
mystery. What will they be like? Will UU Berks be their first call, or 6 th ? There is
so much to wonder about!

So as we all live into this great mystery, here is some advice from your interim to
the whole congregation. Rather than imagining the great changes that will happen
when the new person comes, reflect on what you have to offer now. Not some day,
but now. Imagine how the new minister might need to find out what UU Berks
holds dear so that they know how to build on good stuff. Envision what UU Berks
has going for it, right now. There is much to feel good about.

I hope for you all, and each of you, a very happy Holidays Season.

In peace
Rev. Amy

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