Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

“Act your age!” It’s a constant refrain people hear the older they get, but what if play actually helps us? In this service, Rev. Chris will examine why play is so important to our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

2020-03-01: Canvass Song Side By Side by Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

2020-02-23: Canvass Song Make A Pledge by Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

We live in a society where the default seems to be deep seated fear about showing up with our full authentic selves. In this service, Rev. Chris will examine the power of vulnerability to allow us to show up as our full selves and recover our authenticity.

2020 02 16 Canvass Song Pledging High by Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

So often, people find it most difficult to show compassion to themselves in their times of need. In this service, Rev. Chris will explore why self-compassion may be the most important form of compassion.

Recorded February 2, 2020. Original Frederick Loewe lyrics adapted by Martha Law. Performed by the AUUF Choir, AUUF Saints and Singers.

Canvass Song February 9, 2020. Original lyrics of Woody Guthrie adapted by Amy Kaiser and Martha Law. Performed by the AUUF Choir, the AUUF Saints and Singers.

Building compassionate religious and spiritual community isn’t easy or the faint of heart. We come together each week and create something special at AUUF. As we kickoff our annual canvass, Rev. Chris will exam how each of us contributes to building Beloved Community in the Auburn-Opelika area.

Sometimes what the world needs isn’t someone willing to compromise their values, but a leader poised to change minds and transform the world. On this MLK Day, we will examine how Martin Luther King, Jr.’s radical call of acceptance can transform how we do justice work and see the world.

We live in a culture where everyone wants to be right about everything, so much so that it’s often difficult to know when we’re actually wrong. In this service, Rev. Chris will examine how the spiritual virtue of humility can enable us to examine our beliefs and open the possibility to transform our community and our world.

As we enter a new year, what do you want to leave in the previous year and what do you hope to bring with you? In this service, Rev. Chris will engage us in the importance of letting go and lead us in the fire ceremony ritual as a symbolic gesture of leaving things behind in the previous year.

In our annual Christmas Eve service, we will sing carols and tell the story of the birth of Jesus as we are reminded why Christmas represents such a risk to the way we see the world. Please stay after the service for refreshments and fellowship.

The Winter Solstice is the darkest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, and it can be difficult to see the light. Just so, our lives often seem so hopeless that it can be difficult to see the path forward. In this service, Rev. Chris will examine how we can focus at the difficult times in our lives and see the hope that is possible.

In Unitarian Universalism, we often talk of being called to a particular ministry in the world. What does it mean to be called to do something? In this service, Rev. Chris will examine why it is so important to recognize and live out our individual callings in the world.

People keep secrets for a variety of reasons, but have you ever considered that some secrets can be more harmful than good? In this service, Rev. Chris will examine why telling your truth may be your best spiritual medicine.

In this season of holiday shopping and final exams, the busyness and pressure of it all can be a major source of stress. In this service, Rev. Chris will examine the nature of stress and how we can cope in this difficult month.

In our annual bread offering service, we will give thanks for our bounty symbolically through the breaking of bread and remind ourselves to give thanks in this season of gratitude.

We live in a culture that often romanticizes sacrifice as one of our ultimate virtues, but when is sacrifice too much? In this sermon, Rev. Chris will examine the dangers of sacrificing too much of ourselves to the world and how we can strike balance.

In our annual Day of Remembrance service, we will remember those who have gone before us and remind ourselves why it is so important to keep their memories alive.

So often, darkness has been used a metaphor for evil and vileness, but it need not be so. In honor of Halloween and Diwalli, Rev. Chris will show why light and darkness need each other and why the categories of “good” and “bad” don’t really work for them.

Have you ever considered how your life is like a puzzle, full of pieces that fit together despite sometimes seeming contradictory? In this service, Rev. Chris will examine what it means to value all the pieces of our lives and why it is important to value them all.

In the return of our animal blessing service, Rev. Chris will examine what it means to share our lives with non-human animal companions. Participants are invited to bring their companion animals (or a photo as a proxy) to the service to be blessed.

In this special hands-on social justice service, Rev. Chris and special guests will examine how payday and auto title loans prey on the most economically vulnerable in our state what we can do to help curtail these unjust economic practices. Billye Welborn, Reflection. Mike Nicholson, SE Organizer for Alabama Arise.

Have you ever been in nature and been in awe about the vast enormity of life surrounding you? Has it been a spiritual experience? In this service, Rev. Chris will examine what it means to be a religious naturalist and how it can bring meaning and beauty to our everyday lives. Opening reading read by Jan Newton, Service Associate.

The news seems to be a constant stream of bad news about a new arms race and new nuclear testing, but all is not lost. In honor of the International Day of Peace, Rev. Chris will examine the peace movement in America and what we can learn from it in today’s political climate as we join UUs and others worldwide in our ‘Climate Justice’ emergence, protecting all creation as part of our Waging Peace.

The labor movement in America grew out of the desire to protect the rights of the American worker and brought about many progressive changes still evident in our society. But, in a day when more and more states are enacting right to work laws, does the labor movement still matter? (SPOILER ALERT: YES!)

Artist and writer Jenny Odell says, “Nothing is harder to do than nothing. In a world where our value is determined by our productivity, many of us find every last minute captured, optimized, or appropriated as a financial resource by the technologies we use daily.” What does it mean to do nothing as an act of societal and political resistance? Would we be happier if we were able to do nothing daily and shift the things we value?

intro. by Chris Basgier, Additional Speaker: Lydia Hodges After time apart during the summer, we gather together again, many drops coming together into the stream of our fellowship. But what does it mean to be a part of this movement of water? This ingathering service will also feature our annual water ceremony; bring some water from a place that was special to you over the summer, or use our water to symbolically bring our drops together. Heavily Edited.

After a long search process, AUUF welcomes Rev. Chris Rothbauer as its new settled minister. In this service, Rev. Chris will examine what it means to come together and suggest how this may influence our shared future.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a little book in 1940 laying out her commitment to a thoughtful, committed, and diverse American community. “It seems to me we have to take account of just what our condition is, how much Democracy we have, and how much we want to have,” she wrote. “At a time when the whole world is in turmoil and thousands of people are homeless and hungry, it behooves all of us to reconsider our political and religious beliefs in an effort to clarify in our minds the standards by which we live.” Our own faith movement, the Unitarian Universalist Association, is currently engaged in studying and then drafting a statement of conscience on The Corruption of Our Democracy, with democracy being not merely a means but an end in itself, an ethical ideal, a moral and spiritual way of relating to one another, both within our congregations and society at large.

Viewers of the popular PBS Sunday evening British TV show”Call the Midwife” know that the characters are both midwives by the most traditional definition – people trained to help deliver babies – and midwives of birthing larger social change in the poorest neighborhood of post World War II London. This Mother’s Day we will explore both senses of the word and affirm that we are all midwives.

2019-05-05: Listening with Both Ears | Rev. Chris Rothbauer by Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

2019-04-28: Find Your Inner Superhero | Rev. Chris Rothbauer by Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship