Sermon Library
Mental Health Support
During the UUMHN's 2023 Worship Service, Rev. Barbara Meyers shared her mental health story and provided suggestions for mental health ministries.
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Reverend Barbara F. Meyers. Reverend Meyers is the founder of the UU Mental Health Network, the Board President, and a UU Community Minister with a Mental Health Ministry based in Fremont, California. She is a peer support specialist and assistant director of the Life Reaching Across to Life Peer Support Center, and she's the author of a mental health curriculum for congregations and the book HELD: Showing Up for Each Other's Mental Health, published by Skinner House in 2020.
Joy is a Must!
Difficult times require serious care! When we encounter tough challenges, joy can slip out the window, making those challenges even more arduous. Joy provides the ballast needed to hold steady in life's storms. What must we do to cultivate, nurture, and protect our sense of joy when we need it most?​
Rev. Judith Laxer is the founding Priestess of Gaia’s Temple, which just celebrated its 25th Anniversary last month. Judith is a keynote speaker, teacher of the magickal arts and mysteries, and author of “Along the Wheel of Time: Sacred Stories for Nature Lovers [Ravenswood Publishing]. Judith dedicates her work to the rise and cultural integration of the Divine Feminine in all Her magnificence and wisdom.
Audio Recording
How Could Anyone -
Loving All of Who We Are
by Rev. Cindy Terlazzo and Cass Darrow
Mental Health is getting more attention these days, but it remains an uncomfortable topic to discuss. Consider then that out of a 100 families, it is very likely that there will be at least one person suffering from schizophrenia, one or two from bipolar disorder, ten or so suffering from depression severe enough to warrant medical intervention, perhaps another eight or ten suffering from addiction or living with someone who does, one or two with eating disorders, and yes another with an obsessive-compulsive problem. Opening to such hidden places – loving all of who we are – isn’t this what our faith calls us to do?
Sermons by Rev. Angela Herrera Koren
Angela is a Clergy Coach, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in New Mexico, and the author of "Therapy Tips for Clergy” (therapytips.substack.com) and Reaching for the Sun (Skinner House, 2012). She served as a Minister at the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque from 2010 to 2025.
You can learn more about Angela at korencounseling.com.
When Life Stinks
The sermon “When Life Stinks” reflects on the minister’s own recent experiences of grief, exhaustion, injury, and depression to illustrate a Unitarian Universalist approach to suffering: that hardship does not happen for a reason. Still, we can often find meaning within it, and we never have to face it alone. Rejecting the idea that pain is punishment or part of a divine plan, Rev. Herrera Koren emphasizes that suffering is a universal human experience shaped by vulnerability rather than moral logic. She explores how meaning arises through resilience, perspective, purpose, spiritual practice, and awareness of life’s finitude, drawing on tools like Buddhist teachings, time in nature, and ancestral connection. Ultimately, she affirms the healing role of community—reminding congregants that faith means trusting one another’s care, compassion, and presence until joy and wholeness return.
Trauma
In this sermon, the minister uses the troubling story of Lot’s wife as a lens for understanding trauma, arguing that the behaviors depicted—fear, paralysis, dissociation, and being “frozen” in the past—reflect the realities of post-traumatic stress rather than moral failure. Drawing on research, especially Bessel van der Kolk’s work, Rev. Herrera Koren explains how trauma reshapes the brain and body, how widespread PTSD is, and how its effects can be misunderstood or misdiagnosed, particularly in children. She highlights that healing is possible through therapies such as EMDR, body-based practices like yoga and mindful breathing, supportive relationships, and communities that offer safety and meaning. The sermon ultimately challenges faith communities to counter religion’s historic “texts of terror” by becoming places of compassion, justice, and collective healing.