Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation

09/05/2026

Join both the Prairie Circle and the Tree of Life UU Congregations from the comfort of your own home or wherever you may be tomorrow morning at 10am for our on-line Labor Day service.

Speaker Chaplain Dave Becker

Sunday, September 6, 2026, at 10:00am Virtual on Zoom

“Labor and Delivery”

On September 5, 1882 about 10,000 workers took unpaid leave to march in a labor union parade in protest of unfair and unsafe working conditions. This action, one of many within the 19th century labor movement, spread to other cities and by 1894 the U.S. Congress and President Grover Cleveland passed legislation to declare Labor Day a national holiday. At the heart of Labor Day and its history is an affirmation of human dignity. This Labor Day weekend, Chaplain Dave will offer reflections on the intersection between labor movement and Unitarian Universalist history, principles, and values. Join the Prairie Circle and Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregations in this shared on-line service at 10am Sunday September 6.
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Dave Becker is a Unitarian Universalist Minister and Interfaith Chaplain. He is Pastor for Prairie Circle Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Grayslake, IL and for Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation in McHenry, IL.
Services held in person in the Colby Barn are also available on Zoom. To join us on Zoom, please go to the WORSHIP SERVICES tab on our website and click on the blue Zoom link.
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For Our Zoom Participants:
Please see the links below to hymnary.org, a database which contains the lyrics to most of our songs contained in our standard gray and "teal" hymnals.
Link to Gray Hymnal (For Hymns through #415)
Link to Teal Hymnal (For Hymns #1000 and up)

09/03/2026

Do not forget, we need each other.
~Mother Teresa

09/01/2026

📣 TOMORROW! Join us!

👏🏾 Ready to challenge the status quo? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Meg Bartlett-Chase, s*x educator, organizer, and advocate, as we explore how comprehensive s*x education empowers communities and resists authoritarianism.

🙌🏾 Discover the latest research, policy insights, and real-world stories from the founder of Honest S*x Ed Minnesota Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how s*x ed can be a powerful tool for justice and liberation!

🔗 Register to join us: https://ow.ly/7rLM50ZHxC1

*xEdAsResistance *xualityEducation

with: Our Whole Lives, Unitarian Universalist Association

08/30/2026

My role, in this lifetime, is to share the ancient human stories from when we were connected to Nature, our Souls, and Communities in ways we've long forgotten.

My desire in sharing these stories is to inspire you and to help reawaken you to living a harmonious, connected, Nature-centered life.

Author of The Language Before Words and founder of Wisdom Grove, Sarah Woodard joins us today at 10 am - all are welcome!!

08/29/2026

WE ARE REAL PEOPLE
WARP CORP needs our help!
Collecting winter coats, warm clothing, footwear, boots, shoes, good socks, kid's shoes - all sizes - tshirts, shorts & pants.
Please bring to RCLPC by September 30 and place in the bin by the glass doors! 👍

08/28/2026

The Woodlands returns September 6! 🌳

This monthly online spiritual community is beginning a new season of connection, care, joy, and rest for trans, non-binary, Two-Spirit, gender-expansive, inters*x, gender-blessed, and gender non-conforming people—and those who love them.

And this year, The Woodlands is growing. We’re excited to introduce Sweetgums, a new dedicated space for the partners and spouses of trans people, alongside small community groups for trans youth and adults, parents, caregivers, and families.

Rooted in Unitarian Universalist values, The Woodlands offers a space where trans lives are not up for debate or explanation, but are honored as sacred, whole, and worthy of care.

Monthly gatherings resume September 6 at 5 p.m. Eastern / 2 p.m. Pacific.

Learn more and register at the link in the comments.

08/28/2026

Our guest speaker this week, Sarah Woodard, is an Experiential Nature-Based Perception Guide, speaker, author of The Language Before Words, and founder of Wisdom Grove. She weaves together wonder, presence, and the quiet wisdom of nature to help people rediscover belonging through the practice of noticing.

All are welcome to join us this Sunday at 10 am!
8505 Church Street in Crystal Lake, IL

08/28/2026

From Chaplain Dave:
My colleagues with the Lake County Clergy Action Network fill me with such hope. It was a privilege to join them in public witness in support of National Nurses United protest against Palantir. Following are the powerful words of Rev, Quincy Worthington:

I'm Reverend Quincy Worthington, a local pastor here, representing Arise Chicago and the Lake County Clergy Action Network.
I've dedicated my life to following a man who was in the healing profession 2,000 years ago. And one of the most important things he commanded us to do — commanded, not suggested, commanded — was to love our neighbors.
Loving our neighbors means fighting every effort to dehumanize them.
Loving our neighbors means refusing to stand by while they are abducted off our streets by masked thugs.
Loving our neighbors means protecting their privacy and their personal information — refusing to let what a person shares in order to get care become a path that leads ICE to their door.
And this isn’t a warning about something that might happen. It already is
Palantir built a tool for ICE called ELITE. It reportedly draws on data from the Department of Health and Human Services to map where people are and build files on who to come for.
Health data. Your patients' data. It’s already happening.
Loving our neighbors means refusing to reduce human beings to data points, to targets, to somebody's quarterly earnings.
And loving our neighbors means refusing to make cruelty more efficient.
That’s what Palantir does. It takes enormous amounts of information about human beings and turns that information into power — the power to identify them, to locate them, to track them, to target them, and uses it to tear them away from their families and communities.
Nurses understand better than most that personal information is sacred. No one should ever have to choose between seeking the healthcare they need and keeping their family safe.
The money in the Cook County Pension Fund was earned through healing. Through long shifts, sleepless nights, exhausted bodies, and hands placed on people in their most vulnerable moments.
The wages of healing cannot become the capital of harm.
Loving our neighbors means refusing to make another family's terror part of anyone's retirement.
The Cook County Pension Fund is holding Palantir stock. That stock was bought with deferred wages — money these nurses already earned. More than a thousand registered nurses at Cook County Health are demanding the Fund sell it, and ten thousand nurses across this county are standing behind them. We are telling the Pension Board to divest. And we aren't going to stop telling them to divest.
Because love is not something we profess. Love is revealed by what we support. By what we fund. And by what we refuse

08/28/2026

08/27/2026

Your first stop to get to know Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation before your first visit!

Your first stop to get to know Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist ...