Our Worship Service will be at 10am on YouTube Live. You can access it here. 

Or access directly here.

If you would like to be contacted about how to get involved with our community please take a moment to fill out this form or contact Tina Lewis at tlewis@unitytemple.org.

The UTUUC Creative Writers Group is meeting this Sunday. We meet on the second Sunday of each month from 3:30 – 5:30pm. Have a sample of your writing (fiction, nonfiction, or poetry) handy to share or simply bring yourself. All are welcome. If you are already on our email mailing list, we will send the Zoom link (meeting ID and password) for the meeting. If not, send an email to writersgroup@unitytemple.org to get the coordinates.

Your Faith in Action Network encourages you to join the UUA Side with Love and UU Service Committee for this series: Taking A Collective Breath: Deepening UU Alignment to the Movement for Black Lives. Learn how YOU can join and deepen your involvement. We each have a role to play, let’s find it together! Thank you for joining us on this life’s journey for liberation and dignity for all! Register here. Listen to the first webinar here.

Become a Prison Ministry Pen Pal :: There are currently 24 people in Illinois prisons long awaiting to connect with a UU pen pal. Especially during this time of Covid-19, when lockdowns are frequent, corresponding with a pen pal can be an enormously meaningful experience for both the person who is incarcerated, and for you as a pen pal. It’s a very concrete and rewarding way to make a difference in someone’s life, as well as learn more about prison conditions in Illinois. To learn more and sign-up visit the UU Prison Ministry of Illinois website here. UUPMI provides a great orientation and ongoing support to UU pen pals. Questions? Contact Barbara Moline, Janet Holden and Sarah Harmon at penpals@unitytemple.org

The Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA) puts us on the road to recovery by providing long-term answers to the public health and economic challenges posed by COVID-19. CEJA also holds utility companies like ComEd accountable by stopping automatic rate hikes, increasing transparency and public participation, and requiring them to keep costs low for consumers!

What You Can Do: It seems we have been working on this for a long time, but we are nearing the finish line! Join your UU voice with folks from environmental groups all over the state to urge our legislators to pass CEJA this fall! Help pass the Clean Energy Jobs Act by contacting your lawmakers – Take Action to let your Illinois legislators and Governor Pritzker know you want them to move the CEJA proposal forward NOW!

Partnering with the Illinois Environmental Council, Prairie Rivers, The Illinois Climate Action Table, and the Sierra Club. Questions, comments, suggestions? Contact us.

Safe, Fair & Free Elections Tell Congress to Pass Vote by Mail and Protect Democracy during this pandemic. Sign the petition from UU-the-Vote here.

Sign-up here to receive our Faith in Action newsletter with calls to action for justice & compassion. 

September 26 :: Fair Tax Town Hall via YouTube at 9:30am. After 50 years living with an unfair income tax system, Illinois has an opportunity on Nov. 3 to vote in a Fair Tax system. Join us for inspiring orations from community organizers and elected officials. We can make a difference! Join us to find out how!

Register today here. Co-Sponsored by Community Renewal Society, Faith in Place-Action Fund, Poor People's Campaign of IL, the IL-League of Women Voters, Vote Yes for Fair Tax and UUANI. Share this flyer and invite your friends!

Get Out the Vote in Wisconsin & Michigan! Thanks to all who have been participating in the Postcards to Voters project with our partners from Indivisible. Over the course of the last four months, over 70 Unity Temple members have written over 11,000 postcards to voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

We are now in the final push of this project – postcards, completed and with stamps, are due to be collected by late September. Please return your postcards to the Oak Park location from where you got them no later than September 29. Please also include your address sheets (which are coded with mailing dates) and your full name on the package (this helps us track outstanding postcards to collect).

For folks who do not have the ability to get to Oak Park, please send us a note at postcards@unitytemple.org, and a friendly member of the Vote Love team will pick-up your cards. Please feel free to send us a note if you need help obtaining stamps for your postcards. 

Canned Goods Needed :: Beyond Hunger (formerly the Oak Park River Forest Food Pantry) is in urgent need of the following canned goods:

Please bring items to Beyond Hunger at First United Church of Oak Park - 848 Lake Street in Oak Park. Please go to the rear entrance in the parking lot off of Kenilworth and look for the drop-off window. Donation drop off hours are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday–10am till 4pm. *Please do not drop off donations on Wednesdays as we reserve this day to serve clients. Thank you for your generous support! Questions? Contact Barbara: foodrescue@unitytemple.org

September 11 :: Friday Night Co-ed Softball We welcome all, regardless of athletic ability, and will coach and encourage you. It's about fun and recreation. The Park District of Oak Park requires masks in the dugout and social distancing on the field. Contact sports@unitytemple.org

September 16 :: Are you a UU BGLTQ+? Join us from 7 to 8:30pm for Part II of learning more about the T in BGLTQ+ (this meeting was postponed from last month). We’ll continue our conversation about gender identity. What is the relationship between sexual orientation and gender identity? What does “coming out” mean for trans people? How can the queer community be more inclusive of trans people? We'll keep discussing these questions and more at the next Rainbow Connections meeting. Join us via Zoom. We’d love to see you! Join Zoom Meeting:

As we all move into our busy late Summer/Fall schedules in this "new normal", we want to check in with you to see how you are, what you're up to and how UTUUC can help support you during these challenging days (or is it "daze"?). An incredible team of folks will be reaching out to Members to touch base throughout the month of September. We are here for YOU and committed to providing a listening ear, a supportive shoulder and a calendar of activities and ways for you to stay engaged until we are together again. THANK YOU for being a part of our community. If you have questions or need additional information, please don't hesitate to contact Tina Lewis for more information at tlewis@unitytemple.org.

sharing, Mondays at Noon :: Need a lunchtime boost in your day? Every Monday at Noon Jen Marling and Tina Lewis invite you to take a break in your workday and briefly share something good that has happened to you recently. We hope you can join us! Click here to join the call. Questions may be sent to tlewis@unitytemple.org.

Beloved Conversations is going Virtual! Meadville/Lombard's program on Race and Ethnicity is revamping their curriculum and methods and taking it all online, enabling everyone to participate across the globe. While Unity Temple has been participating in this program over the past four years, now would be a great time to participate or participate again. There's more information on the website meadville.edu/beloved. Registration will be open from September 1-20th. If you'd like to register and/or if you have any questions, please contact Rev. Emily Gage egage@unitytemple.org. 

Transcendentalism and Today :: Rev. Dr. John Buehrens will lead a 4-part virtual Adult Religious Education series “Transcendentalism and Today." Series will run on consecutive Saturdays at 10am beginning September 12th. Participants can attend any or all of the sessions. He will reflect on his recent book Conflagration: How the Transcendentalists Sparked the American Struggle for Racial, Gender, and Social Justice.

To register, click here. 

Soul Connections :: Are you hoping to connect with other people from our congregation? Are you wanting to deepen your experience of being a Unitarian Universalist? Are you looking for a way to renew your spirit? Joining a Soul Connections small group with a 12 month commitment is a great way to answer these questions!

Sign-ups are now open for the next set of groups, which will begin in October. If you'd like to explore with us, please direct questions to soulconnections@unitytemple.org 

The Welcoming All Team is excited to offer an opportunity to expand our exploration of Welcoming All through a reading group exploring issues of justice. This is a separate initiative from our all-congregational read. Join once or for all our sessions on the 3rd Monday of the month beginning at 6:30pm or the 4th Sunday of the month beginning at 2pm. Discussion is led by Unity Temple's ministerial intern, mandi huizenga. For more information, unityreads@unitytemple.org. Sign up here. Sept Read: So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo

NOTE: As of March 13, 2020 we are temporarily suspending in person AA meetings. This link will take you to a list of suspended/relocated AA meetings in Chicagoland. 

There is an AA meeting every Sunday in Gale House at 7pm entitled "Let's Talk About It-Atheists, Agnostics, Anyone" (QuadA). It is for anyone with a desire to stop drinking, regardless of religious beliefs. The first Sunday of each month is an "open" meeting, open to anyone, particularly those who are unsure about going to AA and just wish to listen, or people who are concerned about someone else. Come talk, or just listen. What we say here, stays here. Questions about AA contact Ron winder.upper@hotmail.com.