Service of the Living Tradition

The Ministries and Faith Development Staff Group invites you to join us at this service where we honor fellowshipped and credentialed religious leaders, remember those who have died, recognize those who have completed active service, and welcome those who have received fellowship or credentialed status in the past year.

The Service of the Living Tradition (SLT) is open to the public. General Assembly registration is not required.

The 2013 sermon will be delivered by Rev. Vanessa Southern.

The Reverend Vanessa Rush Southern was called serve as parish minister to The Unitarian Church in Summit, New Jersey in May of 2001. Since her arrival, Vanessa has seen the church through the building of a new extension and a reinvigorated focus on programming and outreach. In 2010 the Summit congregation was named a “Breakthrough Congregation” by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), was awarded the first ever Congregational Social Justice Award by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and in 2011 was a part of the fledgling “Leap of Faith” program. Vanessa also served as part of the five-person 50th Anniversary Task Force of the UUA.

In explaining her personal theology, Rev. Southern has written: “…For me there is something beyond and within and between us all that is more than just flesh and blood, intellect and will. It is what I call God (although I am with the Buddha on this one in believing we each grab hold of only one part of this elephant and would be wise not to draw any grand conclusions from our single handful). So I know and speak from what I have experienced, open to what others have experienced, humbled always by what ultimately is mystery and paradox to me…”.

Rev. Southern graduated from Stanford University in 1990, with a degree in philosophy and religious studies, and from Harvard Divinity School in 1995. She is author of the book, This Piece of Eden, published by Skinner House Books in 2001. Vanessa and her husband, Rohit Menezes, and their daughter and dog live in Maplewood, New Jersey.

Sermons of the SLT Since 1997

The following documents are Flash video files unless otherwise noted.

2012 "NamMyohoRengeKyo—Trespassing Into Prophetic Imagination*" by The Reverend Karen Tse 
Watch the 2012 Service (Video, Script, and Captioning)

2011 “The Face of God or a Face in the Crowd?,” Michael Schuler
Watch the 2011 Service (Video, Script, and Captioning)

2010 "Beautiful Faces and Complex Natures," Paige Getty
Watch the 2010 Service

2009 "A Lifetime Isn’t Long Enough (PDF)," Mary Harrington
Watch the 2009 Service

2008 "Remind Us Again, Brave Friends (PDF)," Victoria Safford
Watch the 2008 Service

2007 Bill and Barbara Hamilton-Holway
Watch the 2007 Service

The following documents are PDF files.

2006 "To Live In This World," Judith Meyer

2005 "Out From Walden," Patrick O’Neill

2004 "Count It All Joy," Rosemary Bray McNatt

2003 "Give 'Em The Old Razzle Dazzle," Gary E. Smith

2002 "Only By Your Presence," Barbara Pescan

2001 "Called! By Whom? To What?" Richard S. Gilbert

2000 "Imagining a New World," Marilyn Sewell

1999 "Other Pulpits, Other Ministries," Mark Belletini

1998 "Truth Telling," Barbara Merritt

1997 "Too Swift to Stop, Too Sweet to Lose," William F. Schulz (Schulz gave two sermons with the same title, one at each of the two SLTs; both are included here.)