What We Offer in Pagosa Springs: Our Fellowship holds services on the first and third Sundays of the month at 301 N Pagosa Blvd, Greenbriar Plaza, Unit B-15, from 10:30 am to noon. Our services are mostly lay-led, with occasional visiting ministers delivering the message for spiritual growth. As of January 2023, there is a meditation group on the second and fourth Sundays from 9 – 10:30 AM.
History: Founded in 1987, our Fellowship is one of more than one thousand fully autonomous congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), headquartered in Boston, MA. We financially support both the UUA and our regional district, called the Mountain Desert District (MDD).
The Unitarian Universalist movement is based on the merger in 1961 of the Unitarians and the Universalists, movements that broke with traditional Christianity in the 1500s in Europe. The Unitarians believed in one God rather than the Trinity and the Universalists believed in a loving God and universal salvation. Today our movement attracts people of diverse backgrounds and belief systems.
Our Mission: We are a caring, inclusive fellowship dedicated to spiritual growth, justice and serving the needs of our larger community.
As a Welcoming Congregation, the Pagosa Unitarian Universalist Fellowship invites everyone to share in our faith community. We cherish diversity and foster a safe environment for all.
The Story of the Flaming Chalice: Each Sunday, as we start our worship service, we light a flame inside our beautiful hand-crafted chalice and recite some inspiring words. The flaming chalice is a symbol for Unitarian Universalists worldwide. The story of how the flaming chalice became our symbol is an interesting one, which began during the Second World War. During that war, lots of people living in Eastern Europe – Unitarians, Jews and others – were in danger of being put in prison or killed by Nazi soldiers. A group of Unitarians came together in Boston, MA to form the Unitarian Service Committee with a plan to help people in danger from the Nazis. The director of the Service Committee was Unitarian minister Rev. Charles Joy. He was in charge of a whole secret group of agents and messengers who worked hard finding safe routes for people to escape.
During the war, when danger was everywhere, lots of people were running away from their own countries; often people who wanted to help didn’t speak the same language. Rev. Joy asked a talented artist Hans Deutsch to create a symbol to print on Service Committee papers to make them look important, so as to impress governments and police who had the power to help move people to safety. The design of a stylized chalice, with the flame of freedom burning inside, was adopted by the Unitarian Service Committee, and was used in aiding the escape of countless refugees from Nazi oppression. Safehouses were marked by chalices scratched in the dirt; clandestine notes using the symbol were understood to be trustworthy. Countless lives were saved by the use of this distinctive code. Years later the flaming chalice became the symbol of Unitarian Universalists worldwide, a symbol giving strength to the human heart.