Jan 15, 2025
Rev. Marta Morris Flanagan, Lead Minister, preaching
Worship service given January 12, 2025
Prayer by Loren Gomez, Worship Associate
https://firstparish.info/
First Parish
A liberal religious community, welcoming to all
First gathered 1739
Inspired by Sibylle Bosslet, First Parish Member
and Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Prophet and Spy
Offering and Giving First
The Giving First program donates 50% of the non-pledge offering each month to a charitable organization that we feel is consistent with Unitarian Universalist principles. The program began in November 2009, and First Parish has donated over $200,000 to more than 70 organizations. For January 2025, the Giving First recipient is Women’s Lunch Place. Women’s Lunch Place is a day shelter community in Boston for women experiencing poverty and homelessness. Trained staff and volunteers provide hundreds of women with two nutritious means a day, clean clothes and a fresh shower with a spirit of healing, hope and dignity. Advocates help guests with issues such as fleeing domestic violence, immigration status, housing, and increasing income. When you donate to Women’s Lunch Place you make a difference in the lives of vulnerable women.
The remaining half of your offering supports the life and work of this Parish. To donate using your smartphone, you may text “fpuu” to 73256. Then follow the directions in the texts you receive.
About our Lead Minister: Rev. Marta Flanagan began her ministry as
our twentieth called minister at First Parish in the fall of 2009.
She is a genuine and forthright preacher. In conversation she is
direct and engaging. She speaks of prayer with as much ease as she
laughs at human foibles. We call her “Marta.” Marta is a religious
liberal, a theist, a feminist, and a lover of the woods. As a
student of American history at Smith College she was captivated by
the stories of social reformers who were motivated and sustained by
their faith. That led her to consider the ministry and to study at
Harvard Divinity School from where she was graduated in 1986. She
was the first woman minister in the city of Salem, Massachusetts,
serving at the First Universalist Church there (1987-1997). She
served in a co-ministry at South Church (Unitarian Universalist) in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, (1997-2005) from where she is minister
emerita. Marta served as interim minister in Montpelier, Vermont
(2008-2009). She is trained as a spiritual director. For three
years she lived in the Vermont woods practicing voluntary
simplicity and the spiritual life. Marta enjoys the vitality of
First Parish and our strong sense of community. She celebrates the
yearning for depth and the desire to make a difference in the world
that she finds here.