Our Worship Traditions

At UCG, worship is truly “not like this every Sunday.”  However, we do have some recurring worship rituals throughout the year that are very meaningful and important to us.  Some of these traditions are:

In mid-August, we celebrate our Gathering of Waters at both Sunday morning services.  As we regather at the beginning of the new school year, we each bring water from a special place or a special moment of our summers.  Whether the water we bring is from our kitchen sink, from a local spring, from Crescent Beach, or from halfway around the world, we pour our individual water into one of four pitchers that represent power, healing, peace and homecoming.  All the waters are then combined into one urn and blessed, as we read together our UCG Compact, affirming our unity for the year ahead.  Later, the water in the urn is boiled carefully, and it becomes our holy water for rituals and baptisms throughout the year.

At least twice a year, in late November and in early spring, we set up the Labyrinth in the Sanctuary.  It is open from 9am to 8pm each day for a week.  The Labyrinth is not a maze; it is a sacred circular path that becomes a mirror for where we are in our lives, touching our sorrows and releasing our joys.  Anyone may come at any time to walk this meditative path. Labyrinth Schedule

Our Advent season begins with a Sunday evening Labyrinth service, a quiet experience that acknowledges the darkness, the sorrows and the challenges that we often carry with us as we enter into this season of light and hope.  Readings, music, and time to walk the Labyrinth bring us together in safety and compassion as we seek healing and balm for our souls.  Additional details are published each year in the November newsletter.

Contemplative Prayer is offered on three Tuesday evenings in December from 6:30 to 7:30pm.  Using scripture as a focus point, we sit in silence, then journal in reflection, and then share briefly in a small group, on the spiritual themes that echo in our lives as we move through Advent toward Christmas.  Participants register in advance for this group.  Details are published each year in the November Newsletter.

Our annual worship services of Lessons and Carols, at 11am and 7pm, on a December Sunday, feature nine Christmas readings from scripture, each passage surrounded by choral music by our adult, youth and children’s choirs.  Our instrumental musicians accompany many of the anthems, as well as provide a beautiful prelude for the services.  Child care is available for both services; a reception follows the evening service.

Our observance of the Lenten season begins with two services, at noon and at 7pm, on Ash Wednesday.  The Sanctuary is set up with stations for meditation.  These stations provide an opportunity to create a Lenten spiritual practice for the following six weeks, including a personal Lenten prayer.  Child care is provided for the evening service.

Taize services are offered on five Thursday evenings during Lent from 6:30 to 7:30pm in the Sanctuary.  There is silence interspersed with beautiful chants from the ecumenical community of Taize in France.  The entire front wall of the Sanctuary glows with the light of tealight candles.   Child care is provided.  This year's Taize services run February 14 through March 13th.

The Maundy Thursday Service, held at 7pm on the Thursday before Easter, tells the story of the last week of Jesus’ life and of his death. After each of the scripture passages is read, there is silence for meditation.  During the service, the candles in the Sanctuary are extinguished one by one until the Sanctuary is dark.  Communion is also part of this service.  Child care is provided.  The Maundy Thursday service this year is March 20.