The Messenger: August 2026
This month’s edition is packed with goodies: Upcoming Summer Services; Messages from Rev. Lori, Ellie R. on musical news and events, and Randa T. with an update on the Board of Trustees; News on the upcoming School Street Coffeehouse Season; UUCSB in the News; A sneak peak at our new opening page video with the updated UUCSB mission; And MORE!
Summer Worship Services continues when we gather from 9:00 - 9:30 a.m EST. in the Parish Hall. These short community gatherings may be led by congregation members and some may be open allowing for spirit to fill the space to suit those in attendance
August Sundays
August 2nd: The Making of Loving Kindness led by Amanda Avallone
August 9th: Currently Open
August 16th: Currently Open
August 23rd: Hysterical UUCSB History led by Anne Dobson
August 30th: Currently Open
If you are interested in taking the lead on an open Sunday, please reach out to Brian D. in the UUCSB office.
Hello Good People!
We are entering August! The last full month of summer! WHAT????!!!! I hope there have been many moments of joy and relaxation for you as well as moments of quiet reflection and centering! This is a time that I gather the energy that comes, hopefully, from some time away and my own reflection and turn my attention to us coming back together fully in September. I have missed you and our many ways we connect over the church year! We have some really great work and play ahead of us this year! We hope to so some work in the late days of July and early August to hit the ground running come September. Launching a robust RE program, growing our wellness programming, redefining and pivoting in our work with the unhoused, planning our bicentennial and new ways of fundraising’s, sengaging our media and social media in ministries of support for the marginalized and ourselves,supporting School Street Coffee House as they grow and grow in beautiful ways. Opening our minds and hearts to the new folks that are coming in to find new ways to be together and incorporate new passions and needs into our conversations and outreach. We are headed into a new year of engaging our principles and values in the most meaningful ways possible.
My ask to you is to rest well and truly contemplate where your greatest passion meets the world greatest need right now! As we harness our spirit and energy to meet the world, we need to come into it fully charged. If your spirit isn’t rested, now is the time. If your spirit isn’t rested and focused by September that is fine too. We are meant to companion and comfort each other on our spiritual journeys, and being authentic and receiving our support is a gift to the community. Be reflective right now and always be real with us! We will be choosing community based organizations to share our plates with this year. It is our intention to share with Saco/Biddeford centric organizations. I and the Worship Ministry team has often done this, aligning the choice with themes of the month or important holidays. I would like to open up the invitation to all of you for suggestions. What matters to you is important and we want to share that with you.
The way we organize ourselves as a church is democratize and egalitarian. An important reminder for all of us to model that when we are together. It points to the fact that we are all ministers here. Niki and I are definitely not in charge of anything really. Although it is our honor and privilege to offer spiritual leadership, this faith calls each of you to that role as well. I ask you in thei final month of summer to think about that. Our committee work is centered on spirit. Our committee work, your committee work, is in fact ministry. Even if it a team that organizes a yard sale, it is public ministry and should be approached as holy work for the community at large. Sorry to put that on you if it feels uncomfortable or unwelcome. We are all this church! We are all this church leadership. That is why right relationship is so important. How we treat and relate to each other is a reflection of our principles. We are an incubator and example of what it means to live in a principled community. If you engage in no other ministry team, you are called and commissioned for that one. Right relationship.
Rest, reflect, reach out. Eat ice cream, put your toes in the sand, find your wild blueberries! Ask yourself what you can do to live your values and find your ministry in the world and in our community. We are growing and changing in beautiful ways! How will you help us figure out what that looks like? How can you help us at any level? What gifts and treasures do you have to share? Can you help with Worship next year? Can you help with forming a 501c3? Could you help us contemplate how to improve our handicap accessibility? Are you a party planner and can you help with bicentennial planning? Do you have fundraising skills, or healing skills? Can you make pancakes or hang out with kids for a night while our parents get out for a break? Can you organize meal trains or write note cards for folks? Can you help us create a social media strategy and reflect on that as a new ministry? Do you have human resource or personnel insite, or financial management experience, or security and safety experience? We need help refreshing bulletin boards!
It is a brand new day. Of course that is true of every day in every way, but it is certainly true in this moment in time. We are resurrection people, regardless of our connection with the Christian tradition. We come from the tradition of rebirth into a new and more loving call. Let’s never forget that! It is on our wall in the Parish Hall! Stay tuned (in)! Raise your hand! Reflect on why we are here and what our role is in this moment of time! Lean into our faith and spirit. Lean on one another
I will end with a modified form of my favorite benediction:
Go out into the world in peace
Keep hold of what is good
Never pay back wrong for wrong
Be joyful
Reflect often
And give thanks
This is the life given to you through creation.
Make the very most of it!
With Peace and Many Blessings,
Rev. Lori
(She/Her/Hers)
Some coverage of the work Rev. Lori organized this past month to hold our community during a heartbreaking time.
‘THERE WAS A LOT OF PAIN IN THE STREETS’
A small team of faith leaders from the Greater Portland area offered hugs, space for grief and conversation at the memorial to Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero.
By Dana Richie at the Portland Press Herald
“Can I give you a hug?”
Green asked. Wilkinson nodded through tears.
They embraced for a few seconds until Wilkinson’s breaths became shallower and her hands stopped shaking.
Wilkinson, a University of New England student, has returned to the memorial regularly, capturing the flowers as they fade into brown. It’s evidence of a life cycle, or time passing. “I can’t get over it,” she said, wiping away tears. “This is home.”
Green offered her another hug after explaining that she’s an interfaith minister.
Wilkinson accepted.
“I know I’m not the only one who needs it,” Wilkinson said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad you’re paying your respects and feeling all of the feelings,” Green said.
Green is one of the half dozen religious leaders recruited by the Rev. Lori Whittemore, a minister with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Saco and Biddeford, to be present at the memorial site where Guerrero died, providing street ministry in the form of hugs, conversations and space to feel.
Whittemore, who’s responded to disasters like Hurricane Katrina, recognized that the community needed the support to grieve. The ministers stayed at the site through Sunday.
“All of the challenges in the world are out there,” she said. “I can preach it on Sunday, and it might be comforting to my people, but I don’t think it’s the tool anymore. It’s the presence, and that we just need to be out there doing this work.”
She organized the selected clergy, most of them from ministries in Biddeford, Saco and Greater Portland, into shifts, making sure there was someone present at the site for six to eight hours a day.
“We know our people,” Whittemore said. “We know the context. They need to see the people whose faces they’re going to see forever.”
Read the full article HERE.
Also, see a clip on the news HERE.
“Summer breeze makes me feel fine. Blowin’ through the jasmine in my mind”
–Seals & Crofts
Fall is just around the corner:
Pick up choir rehearses and sings in church usually on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of every month starting in September. We rehearse in the Parish Hall from 8:45 – 9:45. Our upcoming dates are September 13 and 27. An additional rehearsal may be added for our September 13 th service (Water Communion). Details will be sent to our current choir email list. Let me know if you’d like to be added to the roster! uucsbchoir@gmail.com
But First:
Beloved Congregation,
I write this about 6 weeks since the end of the regular church year. I'm recalling that a year ago, starting my first year as Board President, I spent most of my summer getting ready for September. This meant learning some specifics about governance of our church, meeting with Rev Lori and all of the new Board members (except for Jean H. we were all new!), planning a Board retreat with Kelsey H., getting the new website launched, hiring an RE coordinator and AV specialist, supporting the nascent coffeehouse. It was such a steep learning curve and a packed summer agenda! I was eager to dive in. I loved my time getting to know Rev Lori and Brian in a different way, spending time with Rev Morgan, our new Web Chaplain, and talking with my new colleagues about what we wanted for the coming church year.
Last year was a year of growth in numbers. Some of that growth was probably going to happen anyway, following the trend in Maine in which Unitarian Universalist churches and Quaker meetings reported significant increases in attendance. I'm confident that some of our growth is because of our online presence, enhanced by our updated website and our consistent streaming of services. Elisha C. stepped in mid-year to take on our social media and our steady, positive message of Love surely attracted more people. We know that some people started coming to church after attending the first Wellness Fair organized beautifully by Myra R. Other music lovers learned about us because of the School Street Coffeehouse that Scout W. and Tom C. brought to life. I used to know every single person in the church and now there are many names in our directory that I can't match with a face yet.
New people means new energy, new ideas and new needs. In order to harness the energy and ideas and to meet the needs, we have had to reimagine church. How can we entice people into the work of the church without exceeding their capacity to give? How can we make the building functions meet the needs for space and organization? How can we communicate so that everyone knows what is going on and feels included? How can we meet the clear need to be the voice and hands of Love in our community?
These questions are not resolved and the answers will always be changing. For now we are juggling some physical spaces and re-thinking leadership structures so people's desire to contribute fits with their lifestyle. We are doing everything we can to maintain and create effective and inclusive communication channels.
Many of our church leadership teams, committees and ministries are meeting this summer prepare for the full start-up in September. Finance is developing some systems for financial review and supporting our administrator Brian. Religious Exploration is organizing spaces and programming. Buildings and Grounds is getting some deep cleaning done. Coffeehouse is working on their fall lineup. Revs Lori and Niki are planning the arc of worship for the whole year. Rev Morgan is populating our website's calendar with events for the whole year! And your elected Board of Trustees is having a retreat on August 1 to consider how we can bring all of this (and more!) together.
With Love,
Randa Thomas, Board President
The Board of Trustees has crafted a beautiful new mission statement. It will grace the opening video of the website this fall! Here’s a sneak peek.
(PS. Got pictures from more recent events/the Pick-Up Choir you’d like to submit before the new video graces the home page of the website? Send them to uucsb.webchaplain@gmail.com a.s.a.p)
School Street Coffeehouse: Upcoming Shows
The School Street Coffeehouse team has been busy putting together an incredible line-up for Fall in Winter 2027! Read more about upcoming shows below, click on an event to learn more and help keep the energy and momentum growing by getting your tickets now and saving the dates on your calendars!
For the Planet: Experimenting happening in the UUCSB Kitchen sink!
The plastic dish soap bottles in the UUCSB kitchen with GREEN labels contain a homemade recipe. It is thinner than commercial soap and flows out fast! It will NOT produce bubbles but it will clean the dishes.
Let’s give it a trial run and hope that we can ditch another single-use plastic bottle!
AND: You can easily make it at home!
Recipe makes 2 cps:
Add 2 cups of water to a sauce pan.
Grate ¼ cp castile soap, add 2 TBS vinegar and
1 tsp vegetable glycerin to water.
Heat on LOW & stir till soap dissolves.
Opt: Add 5 drops of essential glycerin
Glycerin can be found in the lotion aisle @ Walmart.
Kirk's bar soap is @ Hannaford
August @ UUCSB
August 9th
Four musical story-tellers, one night of incredible music. Read more and get your tix here.
August 11th: Kit Making for the Unhoused from 6:30 - 8 PM
August 23rd.
August 25th.
Scroll through to see other upcoming UUCSB meetings and events. Click on an event to learn more about it. For the calendar view, click here.
Calling All App Officionados
Exciting news! UUCSB is getting its very own app through ChMeetings!
We've spent the past year getting to know the platform, and now we're ready for the next step—the app! Before we launch it to everyone, we're looking for a few volunteers to test it out, explore its features, and then help others get started this fall.
The app will make it easy to stay connected, access the church directory, send messages, and eventually even make donations or buy Coffeehouse tickets.
Want to be one of our first app explorers? Let us know, and we'll get you signed up!
Summer Outreach
Share the Plate: Summer 2026
Each month, UUCSB chooses an organization to split weekly donations made by congregants during the course of Sunday services. As many of you attend virtually, we are providing an online venue for these donations.
Over the summer, we ask for donations to be split between UUCSB's general fund and Equality Community Center. From their website:
The Equality Community Center is a collaborative workplace for LGBTQ+ and allied social justice seeking non-profit organizations.
We strive to provide a safer and more inclusive gathering space with social and educational programming for all, while supporting the most marginalized in our communities.
SURJ Biddeford Saco Social Justice Demonstration
Join others in ongoing demonstrations supporting social justice! Every Friday 4-5:30pm at Mechanics Park at corner of Main and Water St. in Biddeford while construction is happening near the Saco Transportation Center.
Other Ways to Support UUCSB’s Bottom Line
By Mail: Send donations and pledge payments to: UU Church of Saco & Biddeford, 60 School Street, Saco, ME 04072
Two Ways to Donate to the General Operating Fund Without Spending an Extra Dime!
Are You Thinking About Becoming a Member of UUCSB?
To learn more about our congregation:
Please speak to any member or someone from the Membership Welcoming Committee. Plan to attend a Sharing Your Spiritual Journey orientation.
To learn more about our faith and practice:
Various aspects of Unitarian Universalism are explained in brochures kept in a rack as you enter the sanctuary. You are welcome to take these home. You can also talk with members of our congregation.
Our Church:
We are a voluntary association of those committed to this special religious community. We share common values, but we do not require or expect conformity to any specific religious beliefs. We welcome each person’s spiritual exploration and expression.
Our Church Administrator is Brian Dustin
Hours: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
8 to 10 am
Brian will be on vacation July 18th to the 26th!
(207) 282-0062 or (207) 632-4512
Congregants of UUCSB can find forms to add, change, or recommend items on the website in the Congregant Portal found in the footer of our website. Stop by and see Brian if you need the password.