April 19, 2026 - 10:30am: Celebration Sunday! We Belong Together!

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

We wrap up our annual Pledge Drive campaign with a celebration of our shared community and the hope, courage and belonging this community inspires. Special music from the All-Ages Orchestra.

There will be one service at 10:30 a.m. and a celebration held afterward with catered lunch!

View the video archive of this service here:

Sermon Text

We Belong Together!

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

UU Church of Bloomington

April 19, 2026

SERMON

In case you missed it, I have good news to share. A year ago, this June, this congregation made a $50,000 commitment to Beacon, Inc. to support the development of the new Beacon center - a new shelter facility that will also offer on-site, wrap around support services, job training opportunities, and some transitional apartment housing. This is a huge need in our community and this congregation made a bold commitment to support the effort.

It began with an ask from Beacon, and then a $25,000 commitment from our congregation’s Special Purposes Fund which supports special projects of the congregation. Then, you, the congregation voted unanimously to match this by raising another $25,000!

That was June, and just last month, we had our final fundraiser, surpassing our goal, and raising over $29,000 for Beacon’s Light the Way campaign! In the end, this congregation in this past year contributed over $54,000 to support the new Beacon center.

In addition to this contribution, our Homelessness Task Force has raised additional support for Beacon, many of you volunteer at the Shalom Center, and many donated individually to the campaign before the church made its commitment, or made gifts in addition to the church’s commitment. Some of our members were also leaders and volunteers on the Light the Way campaign for Beacon.

As a new person in Bloomington, I continue to be blown away by the impact of this congregation and its members on the larger Bloomington community. It is amazing.

What I remember most, still being new as your minister, was how uncontroversial the decision was. How little fear or anxiety there was in making this commitment. In the couple sessions the board held before the congregational meeting, and at the meeting itself, there were a few clarifying questions, but generally just a brief, enthusiastic “We can do this!” attitude. You don’t find that everywhere. As a minister, I can attest to this.

It was really moving and inspiring. This year, in trying to capture the spirit of this community and its importance, the Pledge Drive Committee chose the theme - Together in Hope and Courage!

Because together, we are a Community of Hope and Courage. What does this look like? A community that keeps showing up trying to meet the challenges of the moment with courage, with integrity, with generosity. A community that can embody the values of truth and honesty about the way things are, but also a hope and commitment to what can yet be. A community that shows up ready to act, ready to give, ready to risk, and ready to try new things and be bold on behalf of what we value and know is important.

A community that recognizes the need for both resistance to injustice and care for those impacted. And alongside this, hope that roots us in the possibility of what can be, calling us to plant seeds and try new practices that foster belonging and nurture life and thriving.

In so many places in our congregation, we are living into this vision. This spirit showed up when we first heard about May Day Strong, the call for a national strike on May 1st - both our staff and the Democracy Task force began thinking of ways we could be in solidarity and support these efforts, providing space and opportunity for folks to gather given the call for no work, no school, no shopping. Alongside this, we began brainstorming political and labor education we could offer including encouraging conversations to consider what it would take - what would you need to strike and how could the church be a resource and support for those striking. All of this is about building the community muscle and strategies for the larger struggle before us not just to resist the present tyranny but to radically shift the values of our country, to orient and center the care and well being of people and the planet - not billionaire profits, exploitative capitalism, and the militarism we enact here and abroad that serves, protects, and enriches these interests.

Because together, we are a Community of Hope and Courage, courageously organizing for our values.

This spirit of hope and courage shows up in the extraordinary care that our pastoral associates and caring teams, chalice circles, and just individual members offer to each other in the struggles and joys of living. It shows up in our worship and music and the prayers that we offer with each candle lit in our services.

It shows up in the care that our Religious Education staff and volunteers offer the children and youth of our community. And it shows up in the generous support for Beacon, for Habitat for Humanity, in the Hunger Task Force filling our little free pantry every day, in ways we raise money and support community fundraising efforts to support our immigrant and refugee neighbors who are being targeted, detained, and forced further into the shadows, and in so many ways that we, as a congregation, and our members, as individuals, provide leadership, support and generosity to caring efforts within and beyond our congregation.

Because together, we are a Community of Hope and Courage, creating sanctuary that provides hope for our spirits.

And it shows up in the ways we are working to restore native plants around the church and in the larger community, in creating opportunities for community composting. We experience it in the uplifting music and worship life of the congregation, and in the magic of the All Ages Orchestra, and every time we let our values call us to imagine bold futures beyond what we think is possible today and when we share these dreams with our children.

We witness it in the ways we support mutual aid efforts, the community care coalition, and clothing swaps - supporting different economies rooted in sharing. It shows up in growing partnerships with Indigenous communities and offering space to unions and to community organizing groups dedicated to creating alternatives to mass incarceration and resisting ICE.

Because together, we are a Community of Hope and Courage, imagining a world that is more loving and just, where all people can thrive.

I know I haven’t even shared all the ways this congregation and its members are making a difference. You can tell me later what I forgot to mention.

This really is incredible. And we do this all with a small staff and amazing volunteers - you all, our members and friends.

And yet, we know we are living in times of crisis when the need for bold, progressive communities supporting resistance and organizing is so vitally important. And we know that the weight of the world and its challenges requires more capacity to respond to community care and pastoral needs.

We know we need another minister - to extend the caring ministry of this congregation. It will also create an opportunity to strengthen our justice work, have capacity to build stronger relationships with other faith leaders, with community organizers, with UUs across the state - this is a piece of bringing more justice and equity to our communities and our state.

This year, our goal is to fund a ministerial internship position. This should provide a bit more ministerial capacity. But it is also about giving back. This community has a lot to offer and share. A ministerial intern is someone training to be a UU minister. And being a teaching congregation is such a gift to an intern, and also to the congregation. To this day, I am so grateful to the First UU Church of Nashville (Tennessee) where I did my internship. They helped form me for ministry in powerful ways. It is where I first got involved in community organizing which became a core of my ministry. We can offer this kind of opportunity to another aspiring minister.

It is a reminder about religious community overall. The more we give, the more we receive. I know that is a cliché in so many ways, but it is true. It’s just like volunteering in our RE classes for kids and youth - you make such a difference in the lives of our children and yet, you also find yourself being blessed with the gifts that come with knowing our fabulous UU kids!

And the success of our pledge drive this year - today - along with the Ministerial Seed Fund campaign that we will begin promoting after the pledge drive, is about ensuring that our ministry, our capacity can support our congregation’s mission and vision so that we may continue to be a strong community organizing for our values, creating sanctuary that provides hope for our spirits, and imagining a world that is more just and loving, where all people can thrive.

This community matters. It matters that it is strong. Each of us have gifts to bring to make this community the powerful, life-saving, justice centered, spirit-filled, courageous, loving, resilient community that it is. Today, we ask for and celebrate the financial gifts that make this community possible.

I am in! I have made my pledge! And I am grateful to be able to increase my pledge by 11% to help us get to our goal.

We ask all of our members to renew their membership by making your pledge for next fiscal year today! And we invite all friends of this congregation to support our vital mission and ministry by making a pledge today to support this congregation throughout the next fiscal year.

Remember that gifts at any amount matter. When we all work together, sharing what we have, helping one another - when we reach out in care, in support, in attention, and in generosity - we make this place…

A Community of Hope and Courage.