Rev. Jenna Crawford
Worship
Jewish theologian and rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, writes “Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.” The way I see it, throughout the course of the church year, our hearts pilgrimage together too. We pilgrimage through comfort to empowerment to our shared history to holy outrage to acceptance to spiritual growth to quiet to transformation to meaning making, and back again. A ministerial task that I take seriously is the process of discerning, each week, what kind of stop we ought to make on our winding pilgrimage of the heart. I strive in worship to preach what’s relevant and to create a liturgy that engages all parts of the person.
I envision UU worship that transforms people—worship that challenges the status quo, worship that builds the spiritual maturity needed to dismantle the interlocking oppressions that create the status quo, and rituals that invite grace into moments usually marked by ambivalence because of the status quo and culture.