Join Cassie Campbell for an insightful presentation on the importance of media literacy and the value of being an informed citizen. 

Newcomers of all religious paths or none at all are always welcome.

Perri Gardner is the Worship Associate

When it feels as though we are living in a time of scarcity, how can we act from a place of abundance? Come hear the familiar story, as told by members of the Magic Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, introducing three strangers who coax an entire village into realizing the power of sharing and giving in the interactive service. This story also motivates us to be aware of opportunities to notice grace and practice random acts of kindness.

Join us for our Stone Soup Service, canned food drive, and potluck lunch following the service. Please bring a non-perishable food item to donate to the Idaho Food Bank. Monetary donations will also gladly be accepted.

Service by Don Morishita

Join us this Sunday, November 16^th for a presentation and discussion on romantic love, led by Xiaomeng (Mona) Xu, Professor of Psychology at Idaho State University and a member of the Pocatello Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Mona will share about their experiences researching love for the past couple decades including what science-backed vows might look like.

Worship Associate Aurora Bolt and Don Morishita

Justice begins when people of conscience refuse to stay silent. Join us for a Unitarian Universalist service of reflection and action as we take part in Amnesty International’s Write for Rights campaign. Together we’ll explore how writing letters has freed prisoners, protected activists, and upheld the inherent worth and dignity of all people. Come prepared to write, reflect, and reaffirm our Fifth Principle: the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process to make justice real.

Presented by Perri Gardner and Jonathan Thompson

Today’s social climate is complicated by very divergent views of religion, race, and marriage.   Differing personal beliefs about these can even divide otherwise close-knit families. With cultural differences taking center stage today, we might all benefit from an objective perspective offered by anthropology.   The “study of human societies in all places and at all times” has been around for over 100 years and can offer useful insights.   This presentation will briefly provide an anthropologist’s perspective of our nation’s current divisiveness.

Presented by Jim Woods, former Director of the Herrett Center

Pam Blankenheim is Worship Associate

Join us this Sunday, October 26^th for a discussion, led by Donald Allen from the Pocatello Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, about the possibility of life on other planets and how faith interacts with this.

Don Morishita is the Worship Associate

Please join us as Shelley McEuen, CSI Department  Chair/Distinguished Professor of English and coordinator of the Rock Creek Institute shares the historic, biological, economic, and agricultural significance of the Rock Creek watershed that flows right through our own backyard connecting us all.
This partnership reflects the ethos of what Unitarian Universalists stand for: connection, collaboration and compassion.

Melody Lenkner is Worship Associate

Please join us as Christine Geisel, an educational life coach and educator for Adult Basic Education and English as a Second Language (ESL) classes at CSI shares a vision for reimagined ESL classes.

In partnership with the Magic Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the Pathway of Hope plans to plant the seeds for an ongoing ESL program that will not only benefit immigrants and refugees in the Magic Valley but will enrich the lives of existing community members.

This partnership reflects the ethos of what Unitarian Universalists stand for: connection, collaboration and compassion.

Worship Associate Melody Lenkner

The Magic Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is pleased to welcome Dr. Colin Johnson, assistant professor of political science at Idaho State University. Colin will speak about self-expression and politics, drawing on his personal experience of exploring his identity as a gay man while living in Russia and other places in the former USSR. His title, “Our Past Is on the Horizon,” comes from Osip Mandelstam’s 1921 essay, “The Word and Culture,” which questions the contradictions inherent to culture and to politics as we collectively work to redefine our common futures. Reflecting on his own experience of these contradictions, Colin will offer his perspective on perseverance in the midst of political exhaustion and tumult.”

Don Morishita is Worship Associate

Brian  Attebery, Professor Emeritus of English at Idaho State University will speak on the 1939 L. Frank Baum’s movie The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. The story of Oz began in 1900, with L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

In that book and 13 sequels, Baum developed the idea of Oz not only as a place of magic but also as a utopian space of freedom, equality, and justice. He included powerful female figures, reflecting the influence of his wife’s mother, suffrage leader Matilda Joslyn Gage. Oz offered a refuge for everyone, no matter how eccentric or unusual, and, in the second volume, The Marvelous Land of Oz, he created one of the first transgender characters in children’s literature. Recent tributes to Baum’s vision include the book, stage, and movie versions of Wicked.