Feb. 2025 Saturday Worship with JD Stillwater

2025 Feb 19 | News, Worship Service, Worship Services

NAUA 3rd Saturday Worship Service – Nature’s Scripture: the Interfaith Promise of Science.

Underlying the human world of strife and separation is an oft-neglected landscape of commonality between faiths: the natural world. At precisely the time when our religious and political divisions threaten the existence of life on Earth, science offers a sweeping interfaith vista filled with revelations and insights as spiritually meaningful as ancient scriptures. Read as “scripture,” science offers a common text for all the world’s faiths.

Feb. 11, 2025 – AI Boom or Doom?

2025 Feb 12 | Documentation, NAUA Academy, News

Ken has created a PDF with “Points to Ponder”  – thought questions and references for further review.

Click to download PDF

For decades, Artificial Intelligence was one of those “maybe someday” dreams. Seemingly out of nowhere, ChatGPT exploded on the scene in early 2023. The clock is now ticking – the capabilities of A.I. are going to improve exponentially, and very quickly. As with almost every technological advancement in our lifetime, we find it easy to imagine the beneficial uses, but have distressingly little imagination about what the unintended consequences could be. This talk will mostly be based on a collection of newspaper and magazine articles that give us glimpses of reasons that we could very well regret ever opening up this Pandora’s box.

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Bio: In September of 2023 Ken Ing presented “Left versus Left: What’s Happening Here Ain’t Exactly Clear”, then in March of 2024 he presented “I Before We Except Overseas: Tracing The Roots Of Our Multi-Century Identity Crisis”.

Ken retired in 2019 from a career in IT and lives in the Puget Sound area in Washington State.

January 2025 Service – Enlightment Values

2025 Jan 21 | News, Worship Service, Worship Services

Enlightenment Values of Freedom, Reason and Tolerance. January’s monthly worship service focused on the Enlightenment Values of Freedom, Reason and Tolerance, the very same values that were adopted by the NAUA and that stand at the core of Western liberal tradition. The full service title is: “The Enlightenment Values of Freedom, Reason, Tolerance; Advancing the Human Condition Materially and Spiritually; Our Core Strengths.” The worship team will make this a group effort. Join in exploring and honoring the primary core values and Principles of our liberal faith.

Solstice Service, 2024

2024 Dec 22 | News, Worship Service, Worship Services

I’ve been attending Unitarian Solstice services for as long as I can remember, but I have never enjoyed one as much as this Solstice. Maybe it was the music, the poems, Rev Manning’s talk or just being (virtually) with 50 old and new friends.

From all of us at NAUA, warmest wishes for a thoughtful, rejuvenating and joyful holiday season!

 

Liberal Religion—Is It Time for Hospice?

2024 Dec 12 | NAUA Academy, News

Religious participation is plummeting. “Church” has become a bad brand. Should we resign ourselves to palliative care for our aging congregations?
Can we find ways to feed the hunger for meaning and community?
 
One thing is certain: We cannot church the way we always have and hope for different results. 

Speaker: Rev Peter Morales is the former president of the UUA. Before becoming UUA president he was senior minister at Jefferson Unitarian Church in Colorado. Jefferson was one of the UUA’s fastest growing congregations during his tenure. Before entering the ministry he was editor and publisher of a community newspaper in Oregon. He has lived abroad as a Fulbright lecturer in Spain and a Knight International Press fellow in Peru. Peter lives in Sequim, WA with his wife Phyllis.