Recent Sermons
Click here to join online on Sunday morning.
We recommend joining at 9:45 a.m. in advance of the service at 10 a.m.
Sermons 2025-2026
*Sermons are posted by a volunteer, usually within two weeks. Thank you for your patience!
Click here for previous years sermon archive.
Part of Something Bigger. Way Bigger!
with Rev. Morgan Schmidt, Guest Speaker
& Rev. Scott Rudolph, Minister
September 28, 2025 All theology and philosophy is understood in the context that we exist within or as a part of a larger whole. Call it God, the Universe, or existence. Whatever this is, here we are. Belonging isn't optional.
What Are We Doing Here?
with Rev. Scott Rudolph, Minister
September 21, 2025 Creating community is an intentional act. Yes, we get a lot of things done here! However, perhaps the most profound offering we have for each other is the quality of the experience we create while we go about our work.
Longing for Belonging
with Rev. Scott Rudolph, Minister
September 14, 2025 You can belong to many things - a fitness gym, a book club, or perhaps you have a Blockbuster Video card. There is something deep within us that comes alive when we are connected to a larger group. The one group that we are all a part of is humanity, even if it doesn't always feel like it. In the end, we all belong to the Universe.
Welcoming Tears of Joy & Sorrow:
Ingathering and Water Ceremony
with Rev. Scott Rudolph, Minister
September 7, 2025 We come back into community as the summer closes with our beloved ritual of joining waters together from our travels, or maybe just from our kitchen sink. If you’re able, please bring 2-4oz of your special water in a sealed container to participate.
Joy as Resistance
with Rev. Thom Larson, Guest Speaker
August 31, 2025 In times that are turbulent and when you feel powerless to effect any immediate change, finding and celebrating experiences of joy provide the strength and power to keep moving forward on the journey toward peace.
Rev. Thom Larson's life has been focused upon matters of the spirit for almost 50 years with a large portion as service in Central Oregon. He is an ordained Methodist minister, retired from the First United Methodist Church of Bend. Thom's past and current work include outreach to our houseless neighbors, matters of justice, and compassionate outreach to the LGBTQ+ community. A recent joy for Thom and his wife Cindy have been the arrival of three energetic grandsons! (Grandson not pictured.)
Spirituality in a Test Tube
with Rev. Scott Rudolph, Minister
You are already pre-wired for spiritual experience and meaning making. Modern science gives us insight into this universal impulse, which appears across time and religious traditions. The sacred calls to us in a thousand ways. Noticing it is our work.
Growing Together: Exploring Faith in Community
with Amy Brock, Director of Religious Exploration for Youth
What does it mean to grow in faith as people grounded in shared values like justice, equity, and collective care? How can we recognize and nurture that growth? Together, we will reflect on what it means to be faithful as Unitarian Universalists and as members of the UUFCO community. We will also invite stories of your own spiritual journey. These stories will help guide the faith development of our young people.
When Everything Shifts
with Rev. Michael Harris, Guest Speaker
August 10, 2025 Throughout our spiritual journeys, we encounter mentors whose courage to transform and embrace radical love helps guide our own paths toward greater understanding. Carlton Pearson (1953-2023) was a prominent Pentecostal minister who experienced a profound transformation, evolving from preaching hell and damnation to embracing a "Gospel of Inclusion" that proclaimed universal salvation for all people. Rev. Micheal Harris will share how Carlton Pearson's theology and transformation have shaped his own spiritual journey.
Rev. Michael Harris is the former Director of the Open Door houseless ministry and the former Associate Minister of Spiritual Care & Education at Bend United Methodist Church. Prior to moving to Bend in 2019, Michael owned and operated a foster care home for developmentally delayed adults for 15 years. Currently, Michael is an administrative supervisor and mental health therapist for Forever Family Therapy with offices in Bend, Prineville, and Redmond. He lives in La Pine with his husband, Keith and his two fur babies, Chompers and Cleo.
Touching the Earth, Waking Up
with Michael Scott Stevens, Guest Speaker
August 3, 2025 The symbolic story of Buddha’s awakening mirrors the universal teachings of nature. When we are truly reunited with the ground of wisdom we wake up to unimpeded compassion and liberate the boundaries of ego. We dedicate our life to be of benefit to all beings equally.
Michael Scott Stevens is founder/director of the Natural Mind Dharma Center, a Vajrayana Buddhist community. Michael arrived to his home in Vajrayana Buddhism following a degree in Comparative Religions, graduate work in theology and clinical psychology, and twenty years studying and teaching yoga. Michael opened the first yoga studio in Bend in the early 1980s. In the early 90s he discovered his spiritual home when studying with Tibetan Buddhist masters in the Nyingma tradition. Michael’s spiritual mentors encouraged him to write and teach which led to the founding of the Natural Mind Dharma Center in 1996.
The Power of the Pain
with Kelly Dean Billings, Guest Speaker
July 27, 2025 Our spiritual journeys often start with a crisis of faith, dark nights of the soul, or simply questioning what we've been taught, which can propel us into spiritual deconstruction, then reconstruction, if we are willing. Join me as I share mine.
Kelly Dean Billings has been a spiritual teacher for over 20 years. He's a spiritual counselor with hospice patients and sees clients in private practice. He worked nearly seven years w/ refugees in the Middle-East, mostly Palestine. He’s led various advocacy and justice initiatives for refugees, racial reconciliation, homelessness, and mental health. He completed an M.A. from Trinity College, UK; is a Certified Instructor of Mental Health First Aid; and holds a non-denominational ordination.
When the Word for Tree was Landholder
with Ellent Waterston, Guest Speaker
July 20, 2025 Ellen Waterston, author and Oregon Poet Laureate, contemplates and celebrates all things words -- their origins, power, color, meaning, and musicality, their evolution and life span; their exotic configuration into languages. What do the modifications, abuses, and losses signal about our capacity for relationship to place and one another?
Award-winning poet and author Ellen Waterston has dedicated herself to writing and advocating for the literary arts in the high desert region of Oregon, all the while continuing to write poetry and nonfiction works that have evolved into essential reading about Oregon and the West. She has published four poetry and five literary nonfiction titles and is the founder of the Writing Ranch and of the annual Waterston Desert Writing Prize. 2024 was a banner year for Waterston who, that year, received Soapstone's Bread and Roses Award and Literary Arts Stewart H. Holbrook Award, and was named the eleventh Poet Laureate of Oregon. She is currently completing a fifth collection of poetry.
Lecciones aprendidas en Guatemala / Lessons Learned in Guatemala
with Jamie Rose McNeil, Lay Leader
July 13, 2025 Stepping out of your comfort zone can sometimes be challenging, but it can also provide opportunities for amazing cross-cultural learning and self-growth. Jamie Rose McNeil recounts some of her experiences in Guatemala as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, what Americans can discover through interacting with Guatemalans, and what we can learn from one another when we openly share our language, culture, and hearts.
Jamie Rose McNeil was a Youth in Development Peace Corps Guatemala Volunteer from 2022-23, where her responsibilities included teaching Life Skills and English to elementary and middle school youth. She is passionate about immigration and social justice and now works as a legal assistant at Bend Immigration Group, preparing the applications that help clients navigate the complex maze of U.S. immigration. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, singing, and hiking with her mom and golden retriever, Rowan.
A Wound-Up Country
with Rev. Scott Rudolph, Minister
July 6, 2025 Deism is the belief that God created the Universe and lets it unfold without interference, much like a watchmaker winding up a watch and setting it in motion. This theology of nature, morality, and reason heavily influenced many of the country’s founders. The belief system this nation was founded upon was not Christianity, but rather equality and the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.