The Netherlands Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Next at NUUF: Service - January 5th, 2025 - 14:00 at the Keizersgrachtkerk in Amsterdam

Welcome to the Third World, led by Rev. Derek Suchard

With the theme for NUUF in 2024-25 being creativity, and the hard facts of extreme weather events due to climate change becoming unavoidable, it behooves us to turn at least some of our attention to creative approaches to dealing with what is certainly to be a challenging period.

Although it’s relatively new to us, many of the conditions that are now becoming part of our reality have long been a default condition for what we used to refer to as the Third World and the Developing World. And, in keeping with our conviction that we are all part of an interdependent system, perhaps it’s time we expand our search for creative solutions beyond our own circles and outside our borders. Welcome to the One World. At the January service, we’ll be exploring what we can learn from those who have already been living in it for a while. Hope to see you there.

Upcoming services

5 January 2025

2 February

2 March

6 April

4 May

1 June

A few recent NUUF services, 2024

December 1st 2024 - The Dance of Rebirth, led by the Worship Committee

Through the ages, in the time of darkness people have gathered together to eat, drink, be merry, share stories and build bonds that helped them get through the night of the year, waiting for the day the light would be reborn. These ancient circles around the fire are the birthplace of two forms of creative expression that have lasted through the ages: music and dance.

In line with our creative theme for the year, we have built the December service around these two. We will talk about their origins and what they can do for us, both physically and spiritually. But of course sitting down is not the best way to experience music and dance. Therefore, we also invite you to participate in two activities, one focused on movement as a personal expression of emotions and the other on dance as a joyous community-building activity. We hope to greet many of you on December 1st, to dance away the dark of the year - and perhaps dance away a bit of the dark in the world that seems to envelop us right now and look for the early beginnings of the rebirth of love.

Sunday November 10th 2024 - Monster Stories, led by Ellie Lagarde.

Since the dawn of time, stories have helped us make meaning of a chaotic, bewildering world. And in those stories, one character archetype comes back time and time again to test us - the monster. Monsters draw their power from our deepest and most disturbing fears - yet we love their stories, because they give us a safe space to face our demons and emerge changed for the better. They thrill us, shock us, push us to think for ourselves ; they are the unheard voices of history, haunting us until we give them their due, and the untamed forces of nature that demand our respect. They are the shadows in our psyche that torment us while repressed but, once understood and integrated, empower us to change the world and ourselves for the better. And they ask us to consider the strange possibility that even at our worst, we might still be worthy of love and capable of change. And in a society that often teaches us to see anyone too different from us as monstrous, it is more important than ever to understand how monsters are made, and why they are sent our way.

Sunday 13 October 2024: “When We Become the Creator” Led by: Rev. Diane Rollert

Drawing upon her Unitarian Universalist faith and her Jewish roots in the wake of the Jewish High Holy Days, the Reverend Diane Rollert joins us to reflect on the meaning of creation and the dangerous power and tremendous responsibility we humans have in our hands when we become the creator.

Sunday 2 June 2024: Over the past year, we've delved into our theme of 'Composing oUUr World'. Let's journey together as we look back on the year and consider how we've composed oUUr lives. Let’s make plans for the next step(s) to take. We invite everyone to bring a small object symbolizing something related to this theme, the themes of our services and the voyages we are on to place on our ritual table and share something about its significance. So, for this Sunday, let's journey together as we look back on the year and consider how we've composed oUUr lives. Let’s make , the themes of our services and the voyages we are on to place on our ritual table and share something about its significance.

“(Not) Playing the Fool” – Led by the Worship Committee – 5 May 2024 

Many of us have spent our lives being told to “grow up” or to “act your age,” but both the spiritual and scientific realms point to the numerous benefits of keeping your mind young.  We will look at the connection between Shoshen, the Buddhist idea of the beginner’s mind, and recent psychological  research about “the power of yet” and consider how this concept can reframe frustrating experiences. We will look at the other side of playing the fool -- how being playful in our approaches can put us in line with new experiences that grow us as people and help us to make meaningful connections with others.   

Our conversation will consider what we gain when we say yes to curiosity and let go of judgment and need to be in control. And how play can act as a dry-run for real life and give us a laboratory to learn ways to resolve conflict. 

“Small steps towards paradise” with Husky – 3 April 2024

Husky writes and sings songs about love and social justice. He is involved with Extinction Rebellion and Christian Climate Action where he does disruptive actions, training and legal support.

"It doesn't matter if you read the bible or the Iliad. In the beginning there is chaos. And what God does not do is close his eyes and move away. Quite the opposite. God turns on the Light. And guess what, still chaos. Apparently even more chaos, because there is now a light on it.

And what God does not do then is wave a magic wand and create paradise. No, he does one thing. And that is good. And the next day he does another thing, and that is good.

This is how I see activism. Being confronted with chaos, (the climate crisis, war and so on) and just be aware of it first. And, like God, just do one little thing so that today may be better than yesterday. And tomorrow may be better than today. And then suddenly you realise you are in paradise."

“Through the Black Box: Touching Mystery through Awe and Wonder.” Speaker: Eva Kortekaas, MA Religion Studies – March 2024

With so much of our time taken up by the minor worries and squabbles of daily life, it is easy to forget that behind, beneath and beyond all these daily minutia lies Mystery. It's just visible out of the corner of your eyes, just audible below the hum of car engines… and yet it can reach out and touch us at the most unexpected moments.

But what if we need to reach out? Then it often slips through our fingers like grains of sand. But there are other paths. Join us as we explore two possible paths to touch Mystery, namely those of Awe and Wonder.

Church and Racism: The Doctrine of Discovery and Dualism in the History of Theology and “Race” with Thandi Soko-de Jong, PhD candidate – February 2024

This presentation explored the relationship between church and racism through some key historical moments in theology. it focused primarily on how the question addressed in the two Papal Bulls, which responded to whether the colonized and the enslaved possessed a soul, impacted later theological, philosophical, and pseudo-scientific assumptions about non-Europeans.

The presentation described how this impact paved the way for concepts like dualism, drawn from interpretations of St. Augustine’s worldview and René Descartes’ Meditations, to provide moral justification for the racial categorization of humans in a hierarchy of power.

“Unitarian Universalists are neither a chosen people nor a people whose choices are made for them by theological authorities - ancient or otherwise. We are a people who choose.” ― Forrest Church.

A brief History of Unitarian Universalism

Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religious tradition that was formed from the consolidation of two religions: Unitarianism and Universalism. In America, the Universalist Church of America was founded in 1793, and the American Unitarian Association in 1825. After consolidating in 1961, these faiths became the new religion of Unitarian Universalism through the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA).

Both religions have long histories and have contributed important theological concepts that remain central to Unitarian Universalism. To learn more about the history of Unitarian Universalism, please see the pamphlet, "Unitarian Universalist Origins: Our Historic Faith."

Since the merger of the two denominations in 1961, Unitarian Universalism has nurtured its Unitarian and Universalist heritages to provide a strong voice for social justice and liberal religion.