Upcoming Sunday Services
Sunday Services at begin at 10:30am and end around 11:45am. You can join us in person or on Zoom.
In person, at 67 South Randolph Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601.
On Zoom, using your computer, tablet or smartphone: https://zoom.us/j/327711271. On your phone, dial in at +1 646 558 8656. If asked, enter Meeting ID: 327 711 271. The password is 12601.
Upcoming Sunday Services
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
The Program Committee is responsible for those Sunday Services not conducted by a minister, approximately two Sundays a month. Our services can take many forms: guest ministers or speakers, panel discussions, multigenerational, musical, poetical, theatrical, meditative, experiential. We hope to encrich, enliven and expand perspectives and spirits.
We welcome feedback and suggestions! Please feel free to contact us at programs@uupok.org
June's over-arching theme is Freedom.
June 1, June 8, June 15, June 22, June 29
5 Sundays
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
Nelson Mandela
JUNE 15, 2025: FATHER'S DAY HOMILY AND FLOWER CEREMONY
Joe Cosentino, Worship Coordinator
This Sunday we will honor those fathers and father figures in our lives who have loved, supported, encouraged and instructed us, as we seek to share these gifts with others.
We will also celebrate this Sunday with the traditional Unitarian flower ceremony . Everyone is asked to bring a flower to the service ~ from a garden, the woods, the roadside, whatever, as we gather together in a ritual of hope, diversity and community.
JUNE 22, 2025: THE SPIRIT OF JUNETEENTH
REGGIE HARRIS
Pat Lamanna, Worship Coordinator
Please join musician/educator Reggie Harris for an engaging musical journey celebrating Juneteenth and its inspiring history of changing the narrative of freedom and justice in our nation. As a celebration of freedom from slavery, Juneteenth focuses on the restoration of reopening the heart and mind to the invitation to joy and solace. Come and get a heaping helping of food for the soul and find nourishment in this time of challenge as we sing and gain strenth to persevere.
A songwriter of great depth and passion, Reggie Harris writes from a personal sense of mission that merges a world wise point of view with a singularly hopeful stance that life, though often challenging, is filled with possibility and hope. His songs reveal thoughts about life and love and some of the deep aspects of the human experience and cover topics from his own personal journey to world issues and history.
JUNE 29, 2025: WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL-ON FREEDOM
REVEREND TAYLOR HOLBROOK
Joe Cosentino, Worship Coordinator
Together we will focus on the idea of freedom, a founding principle of the American experience. In his book, On Freedom, Timothy Snyder explores the American understanding and transforms our understanding of freedom not so much as freedom from as freedom to-the freedom to thrive, to take risks for the futures we choose by working together. Freedom is the value that makes all other values possible. Looking at Christian scripture and reflecting on personal experience, Rev. Taylor Holbrook will explore with the Fellowship what it means find the cost of freedom.
Rev. Taylor Holbrook is a retired minister of the Reformed Church in America, living in the Mid-Hudson Valley. He spends his time as grandpa to six, President of the Dutchess Interfaith Council, chair of the local CROP Walk, and working with migrant issues as part of Reunite Migrant Families of the Hudson Valley.
SUMMER 2025
July 6, July 13, July 20, July 27, August 3, August 10, August 17, August 24 and August 31
July 6, 2025
July 13, 2025
Reverend Diane Diachishin
Joe Cosentino, Worship Coordinator
JULY 20, 2025: LIVING IN HARMONY: EASIER SUNG THAN DONE
DAVID ROTH AND PAT WICTOR
Pat Lamanna, Worship Coordinator
Joined seasoned troubadours Pat Wictor and David Roth for a musical “conversation” about how we can live together more meaningfully in a world filled with complications - and differing opinions!
JULY 27, 2025: BUILDING YOUR OWN THEOLOGY
AMY STROM
AUGUST 3, 2025: MENTAL HEALTH AMERICA OF DUTCHESS COUNTY
AUGUST 10, 2025
Kathy Boone
AUGUST 17, 2025
Reverend Diane Diachishin
Joe Cosentino, Worship Coordinator
AUGUST 24, 2025
AUGUST 31, 2025: PETE SEEGER AND THE SEVEN VALUES
PAT LAMANNA AND RICHARD MATTOCKS
SEPTEMBER'S SOUL MATTERS THEME: BUILDING BELONGING
What matters is that should difference enter the world of beloved community, it can find a place of welcome, a place to belong. Bell Hooks
SEPTEMBER 7, 2025: INGATHERING WATER CEREMONY
BORN OF WATER AND SPIRIT
OCTOBER'S SOUL MATTERS THEME: CULTIVATING COMPASSION
Compassion and empathy are not luxuries: they are necessities for human survival.
Dalai Lama
NOVEMBER'S SOUL MATTERS THEME; NURTURING GRATITUDE
This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one bfore.
Maya Angelou
DECEMBER'S SOUL MATTERS THEME: CHOOSING HOPE
Once you choose hope, anything is possible.
Christopher Reeve
JANUARY'S SOUL MATTERS THEME: PRACTICING RESISTANCE
Resistance is the first step to change.
Louise Hay
FEBRUARY'S SOUL MATTERS THEME: EMBODYING RESILIENCE
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
MARCH'S SOUL MATTERS THEME: PAYING ATTENTION
The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.
Keanu Reeves
APRIL'S SOUL MATTERS THEME: EMBRACING POSSIBILITY
We should open ourselves to the impossible and embrace a psychology of possibility.
Ellen Langer
MAY'S SOUL MATTERS THEME: AWAKENING CURIOSITY
The whole art of teaching is only the arts of awakening the antural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
Anatole France
JUNE'S SOUL MATTERS THEME: FLOURISHING TOGETHER
Time, effort and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing.
Jim Rohn
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What to Expect on Sunday Mornings
During the pandemic, we met exclusively on Zoom. Since we resumed meeting in-person, our services have been hybrid, with some of us in person and some on Zoom. Very occasionally, due to weather or other events, we meet just on Zoom, but we try to let people know as soon as possible when that is going to happen.
Sunday services typically include opening words, welcome & announcements, the chalice lighting, an opening song, "Words For All Ages," the singing of the children to their classes, the sharing of joys & concerns, the passing of the collection plate (accompanied by a hymn), the sermon or activity, an opportunity for congregational reflection, a closing song, and closing words.
On two Sundays a month, children and youth stay in the sanctuary for the first twenty minutes of the service. "Words for All Ages," usually in the form of a story, often told by the Minister, concludes their time in the sanctuary, and they are then released to go to Sunday School. Once or twice a month, there will be a multi- generational service when the children and youth remain in the room and we all worship together.
From time to time, we actually have an activity and even make things during a service. These services are a real opportunity to engage with the world around us in a tangible way, whether it is making meals for those experiencing food insecurity, connecting with the environment more directly. Such services also serve to forge interpersonal bonds between congregants. Below is a photograph of birds happily feasting on all-natural bird feeders made during our March 17, 2024 service, A Host of Sparrows.
Following the worship service is the Fellowship Hour, a social hour during which refreshments, including Fair Trade coffee and tea, are served. On the third Sunday of every month, we also host Third Sunday Lunch. Every other month, this lunch takes place at a local restaurant, while on the other Sundays it's pot-luck or something simple at the Fellowship.
Hospitality Hour
Since 2002, we have been participating in the Interfaith Program of a very special fair trade coffee company called Equal Exchange. It is the only coffee we serve during hospitality hour following the Sunday service.
Equal Exchange is a for-profit Fairtrade worker-owned, cooperative headquartered in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Equal Exchange distributes organic, gourmet coffee, tea, sugar, cocoa, and chocolate bars produced by farmer cooperatives in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Founded in 1986, it is the oldest and largest Fair Trade coffee company in the United States. Dedicated to concepts of economic justice, the highest paid employee of Equal Exchange may not make more than four times what the lowest paid employee receives.
Essentially, Equal Exchange brings together the producer and the consumer in an equitable and meaningful way. The middleman (in the case of coffee, called Coyotes), and establishes a more direct connection between the producer and consumer.
