Niala Terrell-Mason has been a member of UUCR since 2009. In the past she has served on multiple committees, including Worship Arts and the Board. She is currently the new chair of Membership, a member of the Social and Environmental Justice Committee, Website Committee and a regular speaker and service leader at the church. She is a third-year seminarian at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont. She is pursuing a Masters of Divinity degree with an interfaith chaplaincy concentration. Niala is a Universalist Christian UU who believes that despite everything people really are Good inside.
For centuries, LGBTQ+ people have been in the shadows of spiritual communities. But an uprising is happening and the queer community is leading the way to more inclusive spiritual practices ranging from the traditional Christian church to decolonizing the spiritual practices of our indigenous ancestors. Join us as we celebrate what it means to be queer and spiritual for the modern revolution it is.
This Sunday we’ll talk about complicity, consequences, and what could have happened if Pilate had done the right thing instead of the easy thing and used this power and authority for good and let Jesus go. Where in our lives do we have the opportunity to stand up for the oppressed and downtrodden? Do we … Continue reading Washing Your Hands Kills Germs, Not Sin
Join us for our special annual Christmas Candlelight Service. Our choir will be singing classic Christmas carols and our very own seminarian, Niala Terrell-Mason, will give share with us the hope and love the Christ-child represents. Can’t wait to see you there!
Despite the erasure, dismissal, and mistreatment women have suffered for centuries in nearly all faith traditions, women have still always been active participants, contributors, and defenders of the faith. How has religion benefited from the voices and ideas of women? Who are some of these trailblazers and champions? How can we emulate these women and … Continue reading God Is Within Her; She Will Not Fail
Despair, then hope; Death, then life; Darkness, then light. The story of Easter is a reminder that when it seems like all is lost and the world is breaking your heart, you might be at the beginning of the story, not the end. Hope can be found even in the darkest of times if only … Continue reading Roll Away the Stone, Rise Up, and Go Out Into the World
Black Liberation is a desire for the freedom of all peoples grounded in dismantling the structures and institutions that oppress Black peoples globally. We must continue to work to counter oppression in our faith communities and in the world.
In her poem, “A Litany for Survival,” Audre Lorde famously said “we were never meant to survive” — and yet we did. How? How did Black people and Black women, in particular, survive the seemingly unsurvivable? Mass kidnappings to a new (to them) world, slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, BLM and #SayHerName. … Continue reading A Way Out Of No Way: Black Women And Black Religion
