Join us for worship every Sunday 9:30 AM
Noteworthy Events and Updates
The Riverside light November 2023
- Sunday November 12, 2023 - Stewardship Sunday
- Christmas Eve is a Sunday this year, we will have our usual 9:30 AM Service
- Traditional Christmas Eve Service will be held at 5 PM
Prayer list
Those in need of prayer
- Denise R.
- Morgan R.
- David H. M.
- David M. M.
- Alex M.
- Liam O.
- Robyn C.
- Rob D.
- Rev. Russ Chamberlain
Neighborhood Happenings
“Our American Story”: An Evening with Rev. Cleo Graham
a. Join our potluck at First U on Nov. 17! Please bring a main dish, salad/side dish, or dessert, and help us out with setup, serving, or cleanup if you can. A bucket of chicken or other store-bought dish works! Tell us what you're bringing below.
b. WHAT: Special guest Rev. Cleo Graham will discuss our shared and often silenced American history. How does the history of slavery affect all of us today? How can learning this history help us create positive change? And what can churches do to bridge the racial divide?
c. Rev. Graham is pastor at Faith Congregational Church in Hartford, one of the oldest UCC churches of color in the U.S. As First U's history committee prepares to release its history of the church's ties to the slave trade, Rev. Graham will speak on her church's amazing abolitionist history, her personal research into her enslaved ancestors, and her experience connecting black and white congregations in Providence.
d. WHEN: Potluck at 5:30 (please bring food then or earlier), presentation at 7 PM. We invite a voluntary donation of $2/person, $5/family, to help offset incidental costs.
e. WHERE: First Unitarian Church is at the corner of Benefit and Benevolent streets in Providence, RI.
pastor's corner
Thoughts from Rev. Bob
Prayer & Share
“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.”
Luke 17:15, NRSV
Remember, the ten lepers that were healed and only one turned back?
Today, we might call it being thankful for what we have; our many blessings, some that seem so remote that we skip over them or cover them over with worry and desire for things that we don’t have. Being the optimist that I am, I try to look at the positive attributes of where I am today.
What happens? You know, life can be like a house of cards that one person sees as a disaster waiting to happen; feeling impending doom in a fragile existence. Another might see a fragile existence as an opportunity to rethink where one is and rebuild in a new and different way.
One way I prefer to see things is by imagining the different ways that I can define what I am looking at. Jesus healed and the one person came back to offer praise & thanksgiving. Perhaps the other nine will pay it forward somehow. Perhaps they were overwhelmed by the healing they did not know what to do. Who knows?
What seems important here is the lens that we see our situation through. Some call this a paradigm, a framework that is used to contemplate and imagine what is possible. A way to add focus to our paradigm is to pray and then share what we have with others. Praying helps us to define our lens and sharing then allows us to send our thoughts and blessings forward to others.
Where is your imagination? What is your paradigm that seeks vision? Is your “house of cards” an opportunity to refocus, to shift your paradigm? Reimagine…redesign…reconstruct. There is healing in it through the way of Jesus for you! Praise and thanksgiving for all you are and all you will become. Amen!
With you on the journey,
Rev. Bob
