2025-03-23 Sermon

Theologians and philosophers spent the last century talking about the death of God, but today it’s reasonable to ask if society is living through the death of truth. In his book on tyranny, Timothy Snyder notes that “truth dies in four modes, all of which we have just witnessed” – open hostility to verifiable reality, shamanistic incantation, magical thinking, and misplaced faith. As truth dies, we become vulnerable to cynicism and indifference, which serves the interests of authoritarianism.

Service Coordinator: Jill Moats

https://uuwinnipeg.mb.ca/services/how-truth-dies/

2024-03-16 Sermon

What does it mean to be a Unitarian Universalist in 2025? What are we actually choosing? Reverend Anne Barker will invite us into a reflective worship space –where we consider the emerging possibilities. Rev. Anne Barker is the Canadian Unitarian Council’s Congregational Life Lead for Western Canada. She is visiting Winnipeg this weekend to consult with our congregation about its future ministry.

Service Coordinator: Rev. Stefan Jonasson

https://uuwinnipeg.mb.ca/services/choosing-to-be-uu-in-2025/

2025-03-09 Sermon

“Over the past two years, I have described the kinds of ministry available to this congregation in workshops, meetings, and individual conversations, but I have tried to keep the space open so that you could express what ministry means to you and what kind of minister you wish to have. I have mostly refrained from telling you what ministry means to me – why it exists, what it does, and why I have devoted my life to it. I haven’t shared my hopes in entering this vocation, or my disappointments and regrets along the way. Today, I plan to express my personal views about ministry.” - Rev. Stefan

Service Coordinator: Cate Ziegler
https://uuwinnipeg.mb.ca/services/what-ministry-means-to-me/

2024-12-22 “No one is outside the circle of love,” wrote Rev Susan Frederick-Gray in a 2017 pastoral message. Canada’s commitment to universal health care is rooted in the fundamental belief that every resident, regardless of their background, deserves high-quality care when they need support for their well-being. On this morning after the winter solstice, as we emerge from the longest night of the year and welcome the growing light, Mounir (Mike) Nader, President and CEO of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, reflects on the ongoing need for greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in healthcare—and the path to achieving it.

Service Coordinator: Christina Swindells-Nader

There are slides, which you can see in the video embedded here: https://uuwinnipeg.mb.ca/services/claim-the-growing-light-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-in-healthcare/

2025-02-16

Like the proverbial olive, winter is an acquired taste for many. But if you do acquire a taste for it, “only in the winter,” says Ruth Stout, “can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savour yourself.” Amidst the frigid cold and dark nights, it is easy to miss the beauty and bounty of this season, its warmth and blessings. In this land of long, vivid winters, we can embrace the season or retreat from it, but we cannot ignore it.

Service Coordinator: Christina Swindells-Nader

https://uuwinnipeg.mb.ca/services/an-ode-to-winter/

2025-01-12

In the beginning there is no desire to mark time, and in the end, there is no reason. But in between beginnings and endings, we mark time almost compulsively. Minutes lead to hours, hours to days, days to months, and months to years. And then we repeat. Calendars are the yardsticks with which we measure the passage of time and organize our lives while the proverbial clock ticks.

Service Coordinator: Cate Ziegler

https://uuwinnipeg.mb.ca/services/marking-time/

2025-02-23 “Do not obey in advance,” says Timothy Snyder in his book On Tyranny, warning that, “most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.” In England, Unitarians emerged within a religious movement that was dubbed Nonconformity, while in America, our kindred spirit Henry David Thoreau was acclaimed for his essay, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. As authoritarianism is on the rise, with its false promises of security and prosperity, are we once again called to embrace our heritage of nonconformity and disobedience?

2025-02-02 Like all elements, love is essential for human survival. We need it to survive and thrive, so why aren’t we taught to hold unconditional love for ourselves? Join Octavia as she speaks to the true power of self-compassion.

Service Coordinator: Cate Ziegler

https://uuwinnipeg.mb.ca/services/an-element-of-love-the-elements-series-love/

This is the third in our series exploring The Elements
The Sunday Services Team started in the fall The Elements, a five-part series about our human connection to Air, Water, Earth and Fire, and the fifth Element – Love. Connecting with each one of these has power to nurture and sustain us, to inspire us and to give us life. A personal exploration of how we connect physically, emotionally and spiritually with these ancient symbols of life.