Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Evanston | | Nurturing the Human Spirit for a World Made Whole | | |
IN THIS ISSUE:
• Sunday Service
• Children/Youth/Lifespan Faith Formation
• Staff Column
• Hats Off!
• This Week’s Events
• Congregational Connections
• Our Community Partnerships
• Ongoing UU Connections
• UUCE Resources
| | Hi friends, please take the time to review our busy and exciting Event Calendar for opportunities to put your FAITH IN ACTION | | |
Sunday Service
September 20, 2026, at 10:30 a.m.
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On the Frontlines of Social Change
We explore what it means to build our capacity to be Frontline Responders, living our values boldly within our Social Change Ecosystems. Rev. Eileen leads the service with Sally Parsons as Worship Associate. Kiley Korey is our song leader with Gregory Shifrin on piano and Kevin Barrow on guitar.
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UUCE Engagement Fair
This Sunday, September 20th
You are invited to stay after the worship service on September 20th to mingle and find out what is happening within our groups and teams. Engage in enticing conversations, maybe meet a new friend or join a group, and definitely feel the energy of our robust congregation! You are invited to take a photo in front the tapestry to update your Realm profile and enter the raffle to win a vintage UCE t-shirt.
| | Children/Youth/Lifespan Faith Formation | | |
This Sunday…
Children and youth will go to their faith formation groups after Joys and Sorrows.
Childcare (0-3 years) is available in room 11 from 10:15a – 12:15p.
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Chalice Children (Pre/K/1) in room 9 – our children will hear a story about being welcoming and decorate name tags.
Heads, Hearts, & Hands (2nd-5th) in room 8 – our young people will play some games to get to know each other. Parents of 2nd and 3rd graders should pick children up at 11:45. Older children will be excused at that time for the Engagement Fair.
Middle School Youth (6th-8th) and High School Youth (9th-12th) in room 13 – the youth will play some games and create their covenant for the year.
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Faith Formation Registration time is here!
Parents are asked to fill out a registration form in order for their young people to participate this year.
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We’re looking for 10 more adults who can help 5-6 times this year
in our Faith Formation program for young people and youth.
Stop by the program table for details or email Kathy Underwood.
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FFUUN! Faith Formation UU Network
Join us on Zoom on October 12 at 7-8pm as
we continue making connections happen across the ages!
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Spiritual Retreat
Light Shining Thru the Chaos
For UUCE Members
$15 fee
Sat. October 3
9:00 – 2:00
A restorative day featuring meditation, gentle movement, reflection and a sound bath.
Retreat Registration
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Spiritual Practice Series
Join Rev. Eileen on the first Wednesday of the month for this series that helps participants develop regular disciplines of the spirit – practices that help us connect with the sacred. Spiritual Practice affirms religious diversity while seeking unity in our communal quest for meaning and wholeness. Each session offers a forum for learning, sharing, and growth that can enrich our personal faith journeys. Join us on October 7, 5:30-6:30p in Room 3. Here is the Spiritual Practice schedule:
10/7 - Defining and Finding Your Spiritual Practice
11/4 - Keeping Sabbath
12/2 - Prayer
1/6 - Meditation
2/3 - Mindful Walking and Eating
3/3 - Worship and Ritual
4/7 - Discernment and Devotional Reading
5/5 - Hospitality and Belonging
6/2 - Work and Service
Register HERE
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Staff Column
by Kathy Underwood
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And We’re Off!
September brings a flurry of emotions for me: memories of brand new school supplies and organizing my desk; the anticipation of meeting new people; the excitement of beginning a new year. Maybe these are some of the underlying reasons why I became a religious educator, with the added perks of learning more about Unitarian Universalism, world religions, cultures, and rituals.
This past Sunday as we celebrated the beginning of our year with our water communion and return of the choir, I recognized the parallel to our Jewish friends and neighbors celebrating Rosh Hashanah – the beginning of the new year in Judaism that celebrates the beginning of the universe, and that one’s actions on Rosh Hashanah set the tone for the year ahead. I thought to myself that if this is so, then we’re off to a wonderful beginning!
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Hats off to our helpers at the Pizza Prepping Party for checking supplies and doing light cleaning in the lower level: Julia Adams, Steven Baksa, Becca Bogstad, Vickie Doebele, Gillian Lawrence, Janice Milanovich, Sophia Newman and Kieran Leverett. After enjoying some pizza, they spent the evening sharpening pencils, checking for dry markers and glue sticks, and tidying things up. Our faith formation rooms are lovingly ready to start the new congregational year!
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Friday, September 18th:
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Young Adult Group, 7-10pm, Room 3
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Fiction Book Group, 7-8:30pm, via Zoom
Saturday, September 19th:
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Virtual Pilates, 9:30am, via Zoom
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Worship Planning Team, 9:30-11am, Room 6 and Zoom
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Beginner Tai Chi, 9:45-10:45am, Room 3
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UUCE Prison Ministry Team, 10:30-11:30am, via Zoom
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Intermediate Tai Chi, 11am-12pm, Room 3
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Harry Jones Memorial, 1-3pm, Sanctuary
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Youth Lock-In, 4pm, Rooms 5, 6 and 13
Sunday, September 20th:
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Chris Isley Cancer Support Group, 9-10:15am, Room 6 and Zoom
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Worship Service, 10:30-11:30am, Sanctuary
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Engagement Fair and Kinship Time, 11:30am-12:30pm, Back of the Sanctuary
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TransParentsy Group, 12:30-2pm, Room 2
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Sine Nomine Covenant Group, 12:15-2pm, Offsite or Zoom
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Harms Woods Working Group, 1-4pm, Harms Woods
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Autumn Equinox Ritual and Potluck, 2-4pm, Sanctuary
Monday, September 21st:
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UUCE Addictions and Recovery, 6:45-7:45pm, via Zoom
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Durkin Covenant Group, 7-9pm, via Zoom
Tuesday, September 22nd:
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Leadership Development Team Meeting, 6-7pm, via Zoom
Wednesday, September 23rd:
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Yoga, 9:30-10:30am, via Google Meet
- Staff Retreat, 10am-3pm
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Hope Covenant Group, 7-9pm, Room 2
Thursday, September 24th:
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Meditation Group, 5:30-6:30pm, via Zoom
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Beacons of Light, 6-6:30pm, Dempster and Ridge
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Choir Rehearsal, 7-8:45pm, Room 3
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Have Something for the Newsletter?
Please submit your article and images using our Newsletter Request Form by noon on Wednesdays.
| | Congregational Connections | |
Host a Future Friendship Meal!
The Congregational Connections Team has secured eight hosts for this fall’s Friendship Meals, taking place October 23–November 1. We’re now building our host list for future winter and summer sessions!
Hosts may:
- Welcome guests into their home for a potluck brunch, lunch, or dinner
- Organize a “split-the-bill” meal at a mobility-accessible restaurant
Interested in hosting or learning more? Email the Friendship Meal coordinator or visit the CCT table at the September 20 Engagement Fair.
Friendship Meals are a wonderful way to build and strengthen relationships at UUCE. Want to attend this fall? Sign-ups open October 2—stay tuned!
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Get More Connected—Join a Short-Term Covenant Group
Looking for a meaningful way to connect with others at UUCE? Join a short-term covenant group!
Groups of 8–10 people meet for eight two-hour sessions, either monthly or twice a month. Each gathering offers time to check in, reflect on an engaging topic, share personal perspectives, and practice deep listening.
Past participants have said:
- “I felt heard and listened to as an actual person.”
- “It’s an easy, meaningful way to meet new people.”
- “Just being heard was powerful.”
UUCE will offer four short-term covenant groups this year.
Sign up at the September 20 Engagement Fair or email the covenant group coordinator, Susan Carlton, for meeting dates and times.
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UUCE Young Adult Group
Please join us on 3rd Fridays for games, snacks, and connection among UUCE young adults (18-35). We gather for some spiritual grounding and then enjoy time for games. Bring a snack to share if you can and your favorite group games.
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Harry Jones Celebration of Life
On Saturday, September 19, 2026 at 1 pm, we will celebrate the life of our much beloved Harry Jones. The hospitality is being organized by Catherine Deamant. If it would please you to take on a small role or bring a favorite food to honor Harry click HERE to make your selection and click SignUP!
If you want to opt out of the technology, email Catherine Deamant (catherine.deamant at gmail dot com) with your offer to help.
Many thanks!
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Harms Woods Outing
Need a nature boost? Join us on Sunday, September 20th from 1 pm to 4 pm for a beautiful afternoon in the woods that will be spiritually uplifting on multiple levels! We will be collecting wildflower seeds to be used in woods restoration where invasive, nonnative plants have been removed. This is an interesting, fun and easy activity led by the knowledgeable long-time Harms Woods stewards, John and Jane Balaban. It involves walking approx. 2 miles over uneven ground. Meet at the Glenview Woods parking lot, just south of Glenview Road on the west side of Harms Road.
Dress for the weather with sturdy footwear that can get muddy and bring water. Appropriate for kids 13 and older accompanied by a parent or guardian. Contact Susan Comstock or Dale Griffin with questions or to let us know you plan to come.
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September 27 Kinship Time is Outside
Green Sanctuary Network
Street Party on Greenwood
Come celebrate the renewal of our Green Sanctuary certification with a street party on Greenwood. There will be food, music, Bike the Ridge riders to greet, Garden Tours to take with our Garden Team docents, and progress information from our Emissions Reduction Task Force.
We'll be outside from 11:30 am - 12:30 pm during Kinship Time, weather permitting, on Greenwood between Ridge and the UUCE Parking Lot Driveway. Come party with the Green Sanctuary Network!
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Bike the Ridge
Bike the Ridge is Sunday, September 27. The Green Sanctuary Network is looking for more volunteers to help us set up the UUCE table and awning on Greenwood along Ridge, staff the table, and help put everything away. Click here to volunteer for a shift between 8:30 am - 1:00 pm.
If you are able to walk, bike, or carpool to UUCE on September 27th, please do. Ridge will be closed from 8 am - 2 pm.
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Come See Our Gardens
Did you know we have 13 gardens around our building?
Join us for a Garden Walk after the service on Sunday, September 27, and hear the stories behind each of our gardens.
Our Garden Team has worked hard—and had fun together—removing invasive or overly aggressive plants that prevent biodiverse gardens from prospering. The Endowment Fund has been very supportive in helping us create beautiful new gardens for everyone to enjoy.
We have two rain gardens filled with native perennials, a patchwork pollinator garden, a peace garden, a family garden, an intergenerational garden, and many others. We also have a new garden that needs a name!
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The UUCE Fiction Book Group is reading Whistler, by Ann Patchett
Daphne Fuller accidentally encounters Eddie, a man who was briefly her stepfather when she was ten. The two rekindle their friendship, looking back over the choices they made and choices made for them, and working forward ultimately toward Eddie’s end of life. And yes, there is a horse named Whistler.
Meeting Friday, September 18 at 7p.m. by ZOOM
We will also nominate books for the fall 2026 quarter.
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The Nonfiction Book Group will meet Sunday, September 27th at 2 p.m. using our recurring Zoom link. to discuss The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource by Chris Hayes.
In this book cable news host Chris Hayes explains why new technologies make it ever harder for us to concentrate. The central metaphor of the book compares Odysseus lashing himself to the mast of a boat to modern attempts at resisting screen notifications and the infinite scroll of the information age.
Looking ahead, on October 25th we'll discuss Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson.
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1946!
If this is the year you were born, you're part of a cohort of Baby Boomers turning 80! If you would like to join in our mutual celebration and we have not yet found you, please contact Lynn Kendall at lynndotkendall at gmail dot com.
On Sunday, October 11th we will be celebrating all boomers. With the 1946 cohort being the first set of boomers to turn 80, we will have an 80th Birthday Party Cake during Kinship Time. We hope you can join us!
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Respect Games October 4, 2-4pm
We’re bringing together neighbors of all backgrounds for an afternoon of friendly games, conversation, and connection. The Respect Games is a chance for everyone 6+ years old to learn from one another and build real community. Held at the Evanston Main Library, and facilitated by Kathy Underwood along with Edwina Cowell from Spiritual Playdate.
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Meeting Our Interfaith Neighbors
Meeting Our Interfaith Neighbors: Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum
This year’s Meeting Our Interfaith Neighbors series begins with two opportunities to learn about the Indigenous peoples recognized in our Sunday land acknowledgment.
Tour the museum’s new exhibit on September 29 at 12:30 p.m. or September 30 at 5:30 p.m. Each tour is limited to 20 participants. Register for a museum tour.
Then join us on October 7 at 7 p.m. for a presentation by a guest from the museum. Youth and adults are welcome to attend in person or on Zoom. Register for the October 7 program.
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Mutual Aid Book Group
Do you ever ask yourself why everything seems so hard these days? Are you constantly stressed out about, well, everything? Do you want to learn how things got like this and what we can do about it? Then join the Mutual Aid Book Group, co-led by Nellie Eastman and Kai Frega. We'll host monthly discussions on books about how systems exploit us and how we can work together to fight back. Our first book is A People's Guide to Capitalism, by Hadas Thier. Contact Nellie via email at neastman at gmail dot com if you want to join or if you need help getting a copy of the book.
Our first meeting will be October 11th, at 12:15pm, in Room 3.
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Picnics in the Park September 20 at noon
| | Our Community Partnerships | |
Our Shared Offering Program
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Our Shared Offering Program is one of the ways that we live into our mission statement "for a world made whole." Each Sunday, the funds collected during our worship service either via text donations or in the collection bowls (and not otherwise designated for something else) are shared equally between our operating budget and the current Shared Offering Program recipient.
This Sunday's offering will be shared with Building Peaceful Bridges, whose mission is to is to foster multicultural relationships by assisting in the integration of refugees into American society and educating communities on the challenges facing refugee populations through their stories.
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Help Create 200 Abortion Care Packages
Sunday, September 27
11:45 a.m. in Room 3
Help us create 200 care packages and sweet, supportive notes for Chicago Abortion Fund clients.
Enjoy coffee after the service, then join us to pack one care package—or several! We need as many helpers as possible.
This is some of the work of LOVE!
Refreshments will keep our energy high.
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Faith in Place
2026 Annual Environment and Spirituality Summit
UUCE is a sponsor of this year's Summit. Join one or all of the 4 virtual Summit sessions, including the keynote address by Bill McKibbeen.
Click here to register here. All registrants will receive recordings after the Summit.
There are also local Watch Party Locations at First United Methodist (516 Church St.) & Windfree Solar Cafe (517 Dempster St.) in Evanston.
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Rev. Eileen and UUCE to receive award at annual Fisk Concert
I am so pleased to share the news that we will be awarded by Lula B. Sherman United Methodist Church the Marty and Donna Long Stewardship Award, at the HBCU Annual Fisk University Choir Concert on Friday, October 16, 2026 at 7pm at First United Methodist Church.
Lula B. Sherman United Methodist Church takes great pride in honoring extraordinary individuals who have made significant contributions to our community. Supporting HBCUs is vital because they drive extraordinary academic and social outcomes for the nation. It is such an honor to be selected for our 'work and dedication to the betterment of Evanston, Illinois, particularly within the African-American community.'
The HBCU Annual Fisk University Choir Concert, scheduled for Friday, October 16, 2026, will serve as a platform to celebrate the enduring witness of our historically Black colleges and universities and the neighbors among us who embody that same spirit of service.
I hope many of you from UUCE will join me as I accept this award on the congregation's behalf.
Please purchase tickets here: https://bit.ly/LBSHBCUExperience
~Rev. Eileen
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Boost BIPOC Voting in the South!
Reclaim Our Vote is a grassroots, primarily volunteer-run campaign that focuses on increasing BIPOC voter turnout in seven key Southern states. This is a DIFFERENT KIND of phonebanking. These calls don't badger or preach! Instead, Like ROV postcards, Black voters at risk of being disenfranchised are provided customized, useful information to ensure their opportunity to partake in the mid-terms.No answer? Leave a valuable voicemail message, and feel productive. Choose to call on your own, or join a group for guidance.
See the ROV website and try it out today! Or, visit the UUtheVote table in the sanctuary any Sunday to learn more.
https://www.centerforcommonground.org/phonebanks
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Purchase Tickets for the 2026 IAE Vision Keeper Dinner
Join us in honoring Dana Deane, UUCE’s 2026 Vision Keeper, and Vision Keepers from other Evanston-area faith communities.
Sunday, October 25 at 5:30 p.m.
Hilton Orrington Hotel, Evanston
Tickets: $90 per person
Proceeds support Interfaith Action of Evanston’s overnight shelter and warming center, Hospitality Center for the Homeless, soup kitchens, and SNAPGap.
Pay by Credit Card
Click here to purchase your ticket through Realm
Note: Payment will be $93 to cover our processing fees
Select your meal and list any accessibility accommodations needed.
Credit-card deadline: Monday, September 28
Pay by Cash or Check
Visit the IAE Vision Keeper table after services on September 27 or October 4.
Checks should be made payable to Interfaith Action of Evanston.
Please place your payment in an envelope. Write the following on the envelope:
- Name
- Email address
- Phone number
- Meal choice: chicken, salmon, or vegetarian/vegan
- Any accessibility accommodations needed
Give the envelope to Toni Rey or Mary Beth Roth.
Cash/check deadline: Sunday, October 4
Questions?
Contact Mary Beth Roth or Toni Rey through the UUCE directory.
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Souls to the Polls Campaign
Join our Catalyst for Democracy Team in supporting the "Souls to the Polls" campaign organized by the Social Action Committee of the Evanston-North Shore Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. along with the Evanston Branch NAACP.
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority members will be at the Early Voting site at the Robert Crown Community Center @ 1801 Main St, Evanston on these days:
• Sunday, October 25 at 2:00 p.m.
• Sunday, November 1 at 2:00 p.m.
Voters are requested to check in at the #SoulsToThePolls2026 Campaign table and provide the name of their faith community so their participation can be recorded. After the election, the faith community with the highest number of voters on these two days will receive special recognition from County Board Commissioner, Josita Morita, for its leadership in promoting civic engagement.
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UUCE OFFICE HOURS
Tuesday, 10 am - 12:30 pm & 1:30 - 4 pm
Wednesday, 10 am - 1 pm
Thursday, 10 am - 12:30 pm & 1:30 - 4 pm
Friday, 10 am - 1 pm
Sunday, 10 am - 1 pm
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Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Evanston
1330 Ridge Ave. Evanston, IL 60201
847-864-1330
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