Featuring COA Youth & Mentors, with Rev. Stevie Carmody, Minister of Religious Education Worship service given June 1, 2025 Prayer by Rev. Erica Federspiel Richmond, Parish Minister https://firstparish.info/ First Parish A liberal religious community, welcoming to all First gathered 1739 At First Parish, we honor the passage from childhood towards adulthood through our Coming of Age program. Our service will include Credo (“I Believe”) statements from the Coming of Age class as well as a blessing of the senior youth and a farewell to our Youth Program Coordinator Rose Sawyer-Marsh. And as another cohort passes through the “Arch of Love,” we celebrate all the people who have contributed to our multigenerational community. 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 June 2025, The Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth (BAGLY) will share half of the plate. For nearly 50 years, BAGLY has been a youth-led, adult-supported social support organization, committed to social justice and creating, sustaining, and advocating for programs, policies, and services for the LGBTQ+ youth community in Massachusetts. After serving over 200,000+ youth since 1980, BAGLY is recognized nationally for its pioneering role in creating, sustaining, and advocating for social support, leadership development, and health promotion programs for LGBTQ+ youth. 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.

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