5th Avenue Uniting Church - Springfield, Tennessee

09/03/2026

What does social justice look like at 5th Ave?

It looks like bringing people together across cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs. It looks like showing up for Springfield’s Juneteenth and Middle Tennessee Día de Los Mu***os Celebration, creating space for honest conversation through an immigration forum, and celebrating five years of our Church Pride Picnic.

It looks like making sure “Y’all Means All” is more than something we say. It’s something we live.

September is Missions Month at 5th Ave, and this week we’re highlighting our Social Justice ministry, led by Rosemary Sprague. Rosemary also founded the non-profit Multicultural Events of Middle TN and has a gift for connecting the right people, ideas, and resources to help good things take root in our community.

Want to hear more? In our Missions Sunday service, Rosemary shares about this work beginning around the 53-minute mark. Click the link to watch, and if you feel called to be part of it, reach out to Rosemary. There is always room for another set of hands, and another big idea to help make sure everyone’s voice is heard and everyone knows there’s always more room at the Table ❤️

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

09/01/2026

September is Missions Month at 5th Ave, and throughout the month we’re highlighting some of the ways our church is putting faith into action, both inside our walls and throughout our community.

We kicked things off this past Sunday with a special 5th Sunday Missions Sunday service. We sang The Servant Song, heard from our kids about some of the ways they’ve spent the past year helping create a place where all children and families are welcomed, and heard from several of the people leading mission work here at 5th Ave.

First up: Social Justice, led by 5th Ave’s official, dare we say, spitfire, Rosemary Sprague❤️

Rosemary has a gift for pulling people, ideas, resources, and community together. Her particular brand of “crazy ideas” has a funny way of meeting the right people at exactly the right time, and before long, something that started as an idea becomes a celebration, a partnership, an act of welcome, or maybe even a small revolution.

For Rosemary, social justice isn’t only about protests or big public moments. It can look like celebrating Pride. Showing up for Juneteenth. Helping create Día de los Mu***os celebrations. Folding paper flowers. Making art with our kids. Offering space. Feeding people. Welcoming the stranger. Celebrating someone else’s culture. Making sure people who have often been pushed to the margins hear, clearly and without qualification: you are seen, you are loved, and you belong here.

As Rosemary said Sunday, “Social justice is the work of Jesus.”

The graphic below shares a little more about what that work looks like here at 5th Ave, in her own words. And if you’d like to hear Rosemary tell it herself, her portion of Sunday’s service is on our YouTube channel and begins around the 53:00 mark.

And if any of this makes you think, I’d like to be part of that, Rosemary would absolutely love another set of hands, another creative mind, another volunteer, or even another crazy idea. 😉

Because mission isn’t just something a few people at church do.

It’s one of the ways we become the hands and feet of Jesus in our community and our world.

Y’all Means All. And sometimes, that takes a little work. ❤️

08/28/2026

This Sunday is Fifth Sunday, which means we’re doing something a little different at 5th Ave.

It’s Missions Sunday. ❤️

Our service will look a little different this week, and even our kids and teens will be helping us tell the story of what mission looks like around here.

Because mission can make a pretty picture.

But the real beauty is in the doing.

Sometimes it looks like serving food or unloading trucks at United Ministries.

Sometimes it looks like kids collecting socks.

Sometimes it looks like setting up a booth at the Día de los Mu***os festival while the rain is absolutely pouring and everybody just keeps going anyway. 😂

Sometimes it looks like sitting down with children, telling them honest stories about where we’ve been, and helping the next generation imagine how we can do better going forward.

And a whole lot of the time, it just looks like people showing up for people.

That’s the work.

Our mission statement says we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus to this community and to the world. And we believe that happens in big ways and small ones, in organized projects and ordinary moments, when we decide that loving our neighbor has to be something we actually do.

There is still so much work to be done.

But when we lean on one another, lean on God, and each carry a piece of it, the lifting gets a little lighter.

Come worship with us this Sunday at 11:00 a.m. as we celebrate the work already happening, hear some of the stories, and remind ourselves why we keep showing up.

Because church was never meant to stop at the walls. ❤️

08/26/2026

The Golden Dreamers Luau tomorrow has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We are so sorry for those that had planned to attend.
We’ll see you next month!

08/26/2026

There’s something especially lovely about fresh flowers in the sanctuary. 🌸

Sometimes they’re there to celebrate a birthday or anniversary. Sometimes they’re given in memory of someone we love. And sometimes they’re simply brought just because.

If you’ve noticed flowers near the front of the sanctuary on Sundays, there’s a good chance Lynne Herscher had something to do with them. ❤️ Lynne often brings flowers “just in case” no one else has signed up, many of them lovingly grown right in her own garden from her rose bushes and other flowers at home.

It’s such a simple, generous way of sharing beauty with all of us, and we’re so grateful for her.

And you can be part of it too! Our flower calendar is open for anyone who would like to provide sanctuary flowers for a Sunday, whether in honor of a birthday or anniversary, in memory of someone special, or simply because you have a little beauty you’d like to share.

They don’t have to be elaborate. They don’t have to come from a florist. Sometimes the sweetest offering is something growing right outside your own door.

Thank you, Lynne, for sharing so freely from your garden and your heart. 🌹💐

If you’d like to sign up for a Sunday, just contact the church office and we’ll get you on the calendar.

08/23/2026

Who are we becoming?

That’s the question we’ll be sitting with this morning at 5th Ave as Pastor Dakota leads us through the Psalms and the Gospel of Matthew.

We’ve got beautiful music planned too, including a special piece from our own Muzetta Swann Miller. And, as always, Sunday is a chance to simply be together: to gather, praise, pray for one another, love on one another, and come around the table remembering that we are not alone and that God is still calling us into who we are becoming.

☕ Adult Spiritual Formation: 9:30 a.m.
Come a little early and you’ll usually find folks gathering in the Fellowship Hall around 10:30 for conversation and coffee.

⛪ Worship: 11:00 a.m.

Swipe through today’s bulletin cover and inserts for this week’s announcements, upcoming events, and the people and situations we’re holding in prayer.

There’s a place for you here. We hope to see you this morning. ❤️

08/21/2026

🌺 The Golden Dreamers are going tropical! 🌺

Join us next Thursday, August 27 at 11AM for a little luau fun at 5th Ave Uniting Church!

We’ll have “roasted pig”, a lei waiting for you at the door, games, plenty of laughter, and the kind of good conversation that happens when good people gather around a table. 🌴🌺

Bring a side dish to share and come ready to enjoy the day with us.

Want to join the fun? RSVP to Kathy S.
Her contact information will be in the comments below.

Come hungry. Come ready to laugh. And yes, Hawaiian attire is absolutely encouraged. 😎🌺