Unitarian Universalists use different terms for the words that begin a worship service, including call to worshipinvocation, and opening words. These words invite the congregation from their separate lives and to the common place and time of the worship hour.

(In Unitarian Universalist worship if there are Opening Words there is generally not an Invocation, and vice versa.)

Search Words for Worship Services

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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17

  • We proclaim with Love on our side: Our bodies are sacred. Our minds are blessed. Our spirits are beloved.
    Chalice Lighting | By Karishma Gottfried | April 24, 2024 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Body, Fat Liberation, Grace, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Love, Sacred, WorshipWeb, Worship
  • We come together trusting that in gathering we will be renewed.
    Chalice Lighting | By Pat Uribe-Lichty | October 18, 2022 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Body, Healing, WorshipWeb, Worship
  • We cannot begin to find ourselves without love.
    Opening | By Elizabeth Mount | April 12, 2021 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Body, Children, Connections, Father's Day, Humanism, Interdependence, Love, Mother's Day, Parents, Relationships, Secular, Trust, WorshipWeb, Worship
  • music arises from depths unknown often without words but never without meaning and spirit rises from deep within me seducing my body to join the song first a tremor in the soul, then tapping of toes breath aligns with breath, heart beats in syncopation and a stuttering buzz in my throat becomes a...
    Opening | By Arlen Goff | May 4, 2020 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Arts & Music, Body, Community, Direct Experience, Joy, Music Sunday, Secular, Wonder
  • Give up the fight For some other moment Some other life Than here, and now Give up the longing for some other world The wishing for other choices to make other songs to sing other bodies, other ages, other countries, other stakes Purge the past; forgive the future— for each come too soon.
    Opening | By Gretchen Haley | April 8, 2020 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Acceptance, Body, Choice, Direct Experience, Forgiveness, Mindfulness, Peace, Presence
  • Oh, divine Love, With the kindling of this flame, may we realize and love our true selves: Our true, round belly selves. Our true, bags under our eyes, selves. Our true, naturally hairy, selves. Our true, wrinkles on our skin, selves. May our self-love help keep our chalice ablaze.
    Chalice Lighting | By Cooper Garrett | May 27, 2019 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Acceptance, Body, Compassion, Courage, Dignity, Love, Self-Respect, Shame, Truth, Vulnerability
  • Here, today, in this place and with these people, May we listen so that we can hear; May we hear so that we can feel; May we feel so that we can know; and May we know so that we can change ourselves and this world. May this chalice we light, Light our Way.
    Chalice Lighting | By Erik Walker Wikstrom | July 13, 2017 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), Body, Change, Community, Listening, Purpose, Reverence, Transformation, Unitarian Universalism
  • Come one, come all! Come with your missing pieces and your extra screws Come with your hard edges and your soft spots Come with your bowed heads and upright spines Come all you flamboyant and drab verbose and quiet fidgeting and lethargic All you with large vision and tender hearts All you with...
    Opening | By Ian W. Riddell | July 30, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Acceptance, Body, Hospitality, Humanism, Inclusion, Limitations, Unitarian Universalism
  • We are about to enter sacred time. We are about to make this time and this place sacred by our presence and intention. Please turn off or silence your phones… and as you do so, I invite us also to turn down the volume on our fears; to remove our masks; and to loosen the armor around our hearts.
    Welcome | By Chip Roush | March 23, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Acceptance, Body, Fear, Forgiveness, Inclusion, Vulnerability
  • Love is the aspiration, the spirit that moves and inspires this faith we share. Rightly understood, love can nurture our spirits and transform the world....
    Chalice Lighting | By Maureen Killoran | February 26, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Body, Challenge, Community, Direct Experience, Faith, Generosity, Healing, Love, Mourning, Power, Spirituality, Transformation, Valentine's Day, WorshipWeb
  • We enter this meeting house for kindness and comfort. May rough-worn hands and aching backs be healed. We enter this meeting house of hope for equality. May those who labor to survive live to know justice. We enter this meeting house of love and vocation. May our bonds of solidarity be strengthened.
    Opening | By Megan Visser | September 15, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Body, Justice, Labor Day, Work, Worth, WorshipWeb
  • And so we gather, from the ebb and flow of our lives Thirsty for connection to ourselves Thirsty for connection to others Thirsty for connection to the larger life. As we light this chalice May all who gather here be filled: Filled with joy and hope Filled with compassion and love Here, may we be...
    Chalice Lighting | By Gregory Pelley | September 15, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 6th Principle (World Community), Agnosticism, Body, Community, Compassion, Connections, Direct Experience, Earth, Homecoming / Ingathering, Hope, Humanism, Joy, Love, Nature, Searching, Secular, Unitarian Universalism, Water Communion, WorshipWeb
  • Your body is welcome here, all of it. Yes, even that part. And that part. And yes, even that part. The parts you love, and the parts you don’t. For in this place we come with all that we are All that we have been, And all that we are going to be. Our bodies are constantly changing, cells die and...
    Opening | By Sean Neil-Barron | June 5, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Body, Connections, Direct Experience, Diversity, Intimacy, Joy, Sacred, Self-Care, WorshipWeb
  • From beyond the playful summer clouds, beyond the earth's thin blue line, from beyond the bright moon and meteor showers, we hear the call to look and listen carefully, to turn away from a world that buys and sells happiness, to fully experience the luring whisper of your heart's truth. Why not...
    Opening | By Susan Maginn | February 20, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Body, Calling, Direct Experience, Environment, Listening, Nature, Transcendence, Unitarian Universalism
  • "Holy One, You knit me together in my mother's womb." This is the voice of Psalm 139: "[I] was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth." Let us remember and celebrate, this morning, that each of our bodies was woven together in the depths of...
    Opening | By Erika Hewitt | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Body, Good, Healing, Health, Illness, Mystery, Reverence, Secular, Unitarian Universalism, Wholeness
  • Long ago the chalice of communion wine was set apart for priests alone. We would have all share in the bounty of the earth: wind and milk, bread and meat, that none may go hungry. Long ago those who spoke their minds freely were put to death by fire. We would use fire to warm all bodies and light...
    Chalice Lighting | By Maryell Cleary | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Abundance, Body, Caring, Freedom, History, Inclusion, Interdependence, Living Our Faith, Love, Stewardship, Unitarian Universalism
  • Note: This call to worship was written to be preceded by the first three sentences of "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver (Singing the Living Tradition #490). As we enter into worship, put away the pressures of the world that ask us to perform, to take up masks, to put on brave fronts. Silence the voices...
    Opening | By Erika Hewitt | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Acceptance, Body, Inclusion, Love, Unitarian Universalism, Vulnerability