Tomorrow is our All Souls Day worship service. The centerpiece to this day of remembering our loved ones is the amazing and beautiful ofrenda created by Ramón. If you’ve ever wondered about the history, purpose and elements of an ofrenda - Pastor Molly has put together this great guide…

🐹🐶🐱🐾 Yesterday was our annual Blessing of the Animals worship service! 🐾🐱🐶🐹

One of our favorite things about Normal Heights United Church is that any given Sunday there are usually at least one or two, or more, pets in our service. The sound of a dog barking reminds us that all creation is precious to God. And yesterday we celebrated all of our beloved pets by asking that they join the service so that we could bless them!

Listen to our weekly sermon podcast to listen in (link in bio), or check out the photo album by reading the Sunday email newsletter.

Just a few church folk that made it out to the #nokingssandiego march today.

The big screen is up and we’re ready for our annual October scary movie free screening at 7pm tomorrow (Fri 10/17). Ollie wanted us to remind you that costumes are highly encouraged, because he doesn’t want to be embarrassed being the only one dressed up.

…continuing International Pronouns Day, here is more members of our congregation speaking to why pronouns are important to them…

Kevo (any pronouns)
My family is from the Philippines, where the national language, Filipino, has one third-person singular pronoun: siya (pronounced “shah”). As I’ve grown older, and as I’ve better understood myself as someone without a clearly defined gender (I use the term “genderfree” a lot these days, not as an identity, but a descriptor), I’ve envied languages that don’t assign gender in their pronouns. As a primarily English-speaker, I’ve chosen not to pick a set of pronouns for myself, and I accept any pronouns people want to use for me. She, he, they, xe; how people perceive my gender has more to do with their assumptions of what makes someone masculine, feminine, or even nonconforming; I, personally, try not to define myself within those restrictive categories. Still, I feel strongly that, for those who have chosen pronouns for themselves, we can honor the dignity of those individuals by using the pronouns they’ve chosen. The colonial history of language has left us with an imperfect system to describe the wonderful diversity of the people around us. The least we can do is to respect the ways people have found affirmation and validation for themselves with the linguistic tools we’ve been given.

Wren (he/they)
I’ve struggled to have my pronouns affirmed by many in my life. I think this has to do with having an androgynous or even feminine energy at times as a genderfluid person (generally between trans male and non-binary genders). It has felt painful to not always be recognized fully, but I can’t just pick “he” or “they”. It’s just both. I hope to find more affirmation in the coming years, but in the meantime, I know myself and I am proud of who I am.