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An unlit chalice on a church altar

Unitarian Universalists honor and celebrate a wide range of holidays and occasions over the course of a year. Unlike other faith traditions that use a single lectionary (a collection of scripture readings appointed for a given day or occasion), the topics and themes for Unitarian Universalist worship services are usually chosen independently by worship leaders in congregations. These include unique UU traditions, like the Flower Ceremony, as well as holidays from other faith traditions, such as Christmas or Beltane.

View and download the 2023-24 UUA Worship Calendar (PDF), which includes faith-based and secular holidays that UU congregations often celebrate. The calendar also includes monthly worship themes used in popular theme-based ministry programs. To download or print, follow the link and use the File menu, then select the Landscape layout option.

LEADER RESOURCE 2 Rituals to Welcome a New Child
a medieval window from the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Scotland, depicting the Nativity
Islamic prayer beads or Subha inside the Süleymaniye Moque (Istanbul).
An altar filled with candles, photos, and flowers

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  • A chalice with the word Love over the flame, with six outstretched swirls that create a circular space within them. Together, they form a six-petal flower shape and alternate in color between goldenrod and dark pink. Each contains one of the six UU shared values, printed in a modern font. Clockwise: Transformation (aqua), Equity (bright green), Pluralism (red), Interdependence (dark blue), Justice (goldenrod), and Generosity (dark pink).
    Make us instruments of your peace with love at the center of everything we do.
    Prayer | By Christopher Buice | April 13, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Equity, Generosity, Interdependence, Justice, Love, Peace, Pluralism, Transformation, UU Beliefs
  • Christmas-themed crafts on a white table, seen from above. The focus of the image is a tic-tac-toe game: the squares are marked by sprays of pine needles decorated with holly berries, the Xs are pine-tree-shaped Christmas cookies covered in powdered sugar, and the Os are gingerbread people partly covered with chocolate icing and colorful sprinkles. Surrounding the game are a holiday card, a bowl of Christmas cookies, cinnamon sticks, more sprays of pine needles, and holly berries on otherwise bare branches.
    The magic of Christmas doesn't just happen: It’s made, just like how each year a miracle is celebrated. But that very first Christmas—that miracle—didn’t just happen either…
    Reading | By Adena Dannouf | April 13, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Caring, Christianity, Christmas Eve / Christmas, Commitment, Creativity, Love, Meaning, Patience, Sacred, Work, Worship
  • A black-and-white photograph of a person’s hand, partially obscured by the paws of a cat. The black cat is nearly invisible in the shadows surrounding the hand, but its face must be behind the hand because the whiskers from one side of its face are visible in the light that illuminates the hand. The cat’s paws — white, in contrast to its black legs — are pulling the person’s hand toward its body.
    If I can do nothing more, I go out the back door and sit on the steps where the tuxedo cat rubs my leg and I look for the holy.…
    Poetry | By Jennifer Pratt-Walter | April 11, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Acceptance, Animals, Earth, Interdependence, Nature, Spiritual Practice, Worship
  • A person wearing a blue waterproof jacket and grey pants walks away from us on a narrow trail between giant redwood trees in the Pacific Northwest. They are using a wheeled walker as a mobility aid.
    May all creatures live their lives as if no human crushed asphalt / over the land or shaved ancient forests bald.
    Poetry | By Jennifer Pratt-Walter | April 11, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Earth, Interdependence, Nature, Reverence, Worship
  • In a darkened room, a child with light brown skin and short straight black hair sits at a window that is splattered with raindrops. The child is wearing a red garment of some sort, and is holding their hand out near the window with their right index finger extended. Outside the window, all we can see is a green blur suggesting plants or trees.
    An interactive, cooperative process of creating a prayer of lament.
    Time for All Ages | By Tara Humphries | April 11, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Christianity, Judaism, Letting Go, Meaning, Mindfulness, Reverence, Sorrow, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality, Vulnerability, Worship
  • On a set of stairs outdoors, two women sit talking. They're holding hands, as if comforting one another.
    It seems to me that right now, we all need a little extra grace.
    Reflection | By Elizabeth Stevens | April 9, 2025 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Caring, Compassion, Conflict, Despair, Direct Experience, Empathy, Grace, Living Our Faith, Patience, Relationships, Worship
  • A close up shot of a chalice -- a lively flame and oil burner inside the large lip of a metal chalice -- at First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee. In the dark background, the beams of the sanctuary arch gracefully.
    The American Unitarian Association was officially formed on May 26, 1825.
    Leader Resource | April 7, 2025 | From WorshipLab
    Tagged as: Unitarianism, Worship
  • A close-up of colorful woven fabric. The warp and weft are visible: The warp is uniform throughout, and is a shiny pale red. The weft is different on almost every row, and each row looks like it might be a shoelace. The shoelaces are solid colors — black, blue, grey, brown, lime, pink — except for the center row, which is in a multi-colored pattern.
    After Sal’s beloved partner Lee dies, Sal’s neighbors in the big apartment building want to make them a grief blanket. But individually, no one has enough fabric or yarn…
    Story | By Tara Humphries | April 4, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Arts & Music, Caring, Community, Connections, Creativity, Death, Friendship, Grief, Healing, Humanism, Teamwork
  • At nighttime, a person is facing towards us on a grassy footpath, shining a flashlight on the ground several feet in front of them. The person is in silhouette, illuminated from behind by a light further away from us on the path. We can just barely make out the trees, bushes, and weeds outside the path.
    Our faith, like a light, illuminates the path before us…
    Chalice Extinguishing | By James Galasinski | April 4, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Awe, Community, Compassion, Despair, Faith, Love
  • A bas-relief of Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” drawing, which shows a diagram of a man inside a circle, with his arms and legs extended so that his hands and feet touch the circumference, and with his arms and legs shown in two positions. The sculpture is made out of grey metal, with a decorative border surrounding the circle in which the man is enclosed.
    …Now that we have enjoyed the quiet, connected to our bodies, and noticed how we are connected to the world around us, may we remember that connection with every breath.
    Meditation | By Lóre Stevens | April 2, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Body, Connections, Earth, Mindfulness, Spiritual Practice, Worship
  • A person with dark skin sits, a blanket around their shoulders, on the edge of an emergency vehicle holding what seem to be their injured hand. We see a white person in a uniform bending over, about to apply a bandage or ice pack to the hurt hand.
    Noticing things that need our attention, and then stopping to help, is a communal habit.
    Reflection | By Christine Slocum | April 2, 2025 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Worship
  • On a black wrought iron fence, a sprig of flowers is taped next to a handwritten sign on purple posterboard: "Trans energy is sacred energy"
    Trans joy trans joy is bigger than the struggle, louder than the hate, more enduring than fear.
    Reflection | By Jes Martinez-Hunt | March 26, 2025 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: #LGBTQ, #Pride, 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Children, Identity, Joy, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Parents, Self-Respect, Worship
  • A close-up of a white person's neck, collarbone, and upper chest. The person is wearing a shallow, scoopnecked black shirt, and there's glitter covering their skin.
    As a trans woman, I love the ways we sparkle; the ways we twirl. This is how I enter the world, and I've paid a high price for it my entire life.
    Reflection | By Quinn Gormley | March 19, 2025 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: #LoveResists, #Pride, 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Direct Experience, Freedom, Gender, Healing, Identity, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer, Secular, Self-Respect, Sexuality, Transformation, Women, Worship
  • A small flowering plant (Phacelia neglecta) on a reddish rock in the desert outside Quartzsite, Arizona. It has four or five leaves on its small stem, and a single blossom with five pale purple and white petals.
    Improbably, the wind-blown seed found its way here, to a long, beautiful stretch of land, but one that was hot, dry, and arid.…
    Poetry | By Manish Mishra-Marzetti | March 13, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Beauty, Challenge, Earth, Interdependence, Nature, Resilience, Transformation, Worship
  • A close-up of a drop of water forming on the tip of an icicle, against a blurred dark blue and white background. The many tiny cracks and bubbles in the icicle are visible.
    …it is enough to release the piercing frigidity, the brittle rigidity of ice— and embrace the versatile, vital, blessing, bathing, embodiment of water.
    Poetry | By Nicholas D’Agosto | March 13, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Change, Nature, Simplicity, Transformation, Worship
  • Over the vast New Mexico landscape of scrubbrush and, in the distance, purple mountains, a large stormy sky is filled with lurking clouds. A bright arm of lightning reaches down from one cloud to the earth below.
    When the storm is powerful, we need each other to weather it.
    Reflection | By Tomo Hillbo | March 12, 2025 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Worship
  • A Black man and a small child, wearing rubber boots, hunch down in the shallow part of a wide river. The child is dipping a small pink net into the water, guided by their father's hand. They're both gazing at the surface of the water.
    At any moment in our lives we have a choice about how to inhabit the world.
    Reflection | By Michelle L. Mills | March 5, 2025 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Buddhism, Worship
  • A plain white card with the text ”thank you :)” is leaning against a blue and grey ceramic pot containing a small plant with round green leaves, possibly a Chinese money plant. The card and plant are on an otherwise bare weathered wooden table.
    This worship service explores gratitude and wonder through opportunities for spiritual practice. Instead of a sermon, the service includes time for personal reflection, community storytelling, and action.
    Script | By Liz Weber | March 4, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Arts & Music, Community, Creativity, Gratitude, Personal Stories, Spiritual Practice, Wonder, Worship
  • Unitarian Universalist Association Chalice
    With appreciation to Timothy Snyder’s On TyrannyAs fear abounds, may courage as well. In these times, we know we will need not to turn away nor surrender in advance. In the coming years, when asked to turn away, to focus only on our own survival and to disregard our neighbors's—Knowing the...
    Responsive Reading | By Leslie Takahashi | February 28, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Activism, Democracy, Disaster or Crisis, Interdependence, Justice, Living Our Faith, Responsibility, Solidarity, Suffering, Terrorism
  • A close-up of a piece of lapis lazuli. Most of the image is the deep blue of the stone, but there is a large irregularly-shaped area of white on the left side of the photo. Throughout, the stone contains cracks as well as flecks of gold-colored pyrite.
    Some years are hard. Some holidays won’t feel jolly. Some days are best kept In quiet contemplation. But none of that makes this time less holy. None of that makes you less worthy…
    Reading | By Monica Clark-Robinson | February 26, 2025 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Beauty, Brokenness, Christianity, Christmas Eve / Christmas, Compassion, Fear, Grace, Sacred, Shadow, Truth, Wholeness, Worship, Worth