Worship, Programs, and Music Committee

Andrea Freerksen, Chair
Amos Biggers, Member
Max Burgess, Member
Tabitha Daboni, Member
David Leckband, Member
Tony Pham, Member
Dr. Barbara Randolph, Member
Adam O’Dell, Member Ex Officio
Corey Russell, Member Ex Officio
Liz Tolbert, Member Ex Officio

We can all be reached at once via email at first-u-worship-and-programming@googlegroups.com . Please email us as a group and not individually.

The Worship, Programs, and Music Committee is a consensus led, non-hierarchical committee focused on tending to the worship and the spiritual and communal practices of the congregation and on supporting congregants in creating services and programming. We endeavor to communicate with staff in efficient ways, create structure and guides to reduce friction, and make connections with progressive religious institutions in Hyde Park and other UU churches to find points of connection and collaboration. We strive to serve the congregation as a source of continuity for best practices and wisdom, gleaned through outside learning and experience that committee members bring or seek out. You can conveniently email the entire committee all at once at first-u-worship-and-programming@googlegroups.com.

Interested in planning a service, program, or First Forum? Contact the First U Worship, Programming, and Music (WPM) Committee at first-u-worship-and-programming@googlegroups.com. Please email us as a group and not individually.

We welcome you to our Sunday Services at 10:00 a.m. throughout the year, services which express our values of inclusivity and radical hospitality.

We are a thinking and feeling congregation and our worship stretches our minds and touches our hearts. We are a congregation of all ages with growing numbers of young families. We are multicultural and multiracial and our worship life expresses the rich diversity of our congregation.

In our weekly Sunday morning worship we celebrate life, seek truth and meaning, build community, offer comfort in times of sorrow, and challenge each other to live our deepest, highest values in everyday life. With inspiring, sometimes meditative, sometimes joyful music, we fill our spirits and strengthen our courage.

Our Worship leaders include our Senior Minister, Director of Religious Education, many guest ministers, our Music Director, our choir, and many lay leaders spanning the ages from youth through young adults to older adults. Our worship leaders collaborate to create services that flow through words and music, rich sound and color, story, rituals and silence. Our choir’s music is very diverse, reflecting our multicultural sensibilities, and the music draws us into meditation or lifts us up in thanksgiving for life. Each service also includes times of meditation and prayer.

Our children are with us for the first part of every service before we sing them to the religious education programs, and we have from 6 to 8 completely multigenerational services throughout the year, including our Water Ceremony after Labor Day, United Nations Sunday with the Chicago Children’s Choir, Thanksgiving, Holiday Sunday in December, Kwanzaa, Easter, Religious Education Sunday and Flower Communion Sunday in June.