About Our Worship

We gather together in spiritual community in order to support one another, and return our focus to what matters most in life. In a world of heartbreak and dehumanization, our congregations and communities call us to our better selves. We learn to live with more wisdom, more connection, and more compassion.

Our worship services are weekly reflections that weave together our own thoughts and experiences with music, beauty, poetry, and words that both comfort and challenge. Our programs for all ages inspire us, and awaken us to our capacities to make a difference in our own lives and in the world.

We are inspired not just by religious sources but by the people with whom we journey: the diverse and spirited Unitarian Universalists.

​Connect with us to join in. Discover our upcoming services here.

Faith is a journey best taken together. In this complex, chaotic world, we long for connection. Those connections — relationships between family and community —  are at the heart of our religious exploration offerings. After all, for most, families are the ultimate builders of values. Learn more about Whole Church Religious Exploration program here.

Music and Choir

Each December

Consider joining our Christmas Eve choir! What a festive time of year to experience the joy of our voices coming together. And to contribute to the message of our 6:30 p.m. candlelight service. Invite a friend to join us!

Adult and young voices (we suggest grade 5 and up) will begin rehearsals this week for our Christmas Eve service.

Here is one place where we list our list of rehearsals — Come to one and see how it feels . . . come to a few . . . or to as many as you are able! We start the first Thursday evening of December and juggle back and forth between Thursdays and Sundays. We throw in a Tuesday and a Saturday. People come to as many sessions as they can.

Christmas Eve
5-6 p.m. Warm-up in sanctuary
6:30-7:30 p.m. Candlelight service

Reach out to Jo El Miano with any questions:
Text or call (518) 578-5821 or email joellen.miano@gmail.com

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Music is an important part of our worship services. It can speak to the soul deeply and powerfully, creating a time of beauty and reflection. Music can raise us up and carry us toward a vision of beloved community. Jo Ellen Miano, music director, leads us at our Steinway piano or in congregational circle singing throughout the service. Our music is selected to serve as a spiritual anchor throughout the service. Frequently, soloists participate in live singing. Our congregation engages in uplifting communal singing and even with those attendees on Zoom! 

“I find that the music in our services can often brings people to a deep connection with each other, creating a shared understanding or empathy. We really incorporate lots kinds of music . . . whatever the worship service’s theme calls for, ” Miano says.

We frame our worship services with opening and closing music. And music is woven throughout the service–music for quiet reflection and for congregational singing.

“In addition, we look to engage people beyond simply singing from a hymnbook. We like to get moving, clapping, swinging.” We look for music that keeps centering on our UU movement’s commitment to anti-racism, anti-oppression, and multiculturalism. As Erika Hewitt, UUA Minister of Worship Arts, says, “[We] want to weave in  . . . practices of disrupting white supremacy culture, and [we] want to invite equity and diversity and inclusion.”

We are excited to begin drawing from the upcoming Virtual Hymnal that the Unitarian Universalist Association is developing. It will be a living collection of song resources through an accessible, equitable, online platform grounded in UU values. This virtual hymnal will help Unitarian Universalism live into our prophetic calling as a joyful, liberatory, and anti-oppressive faith.

Interested in sharing your musical talents? Contact us at love@uuplattsburgh.org.

Music in Film

As part of our BLM Team film series, we often host movies with a strong musical soundtrack. for instance, last June we screened a Disney film for the whole family (PG)! Wonderful characters, fabulous songs and dancing. Themes of family, fantasy, secrets, empathy, immigration.

In December we watch a 2013 American family musical drama film, based on Langston Hughes’ 1961 play. Rated PG. A heartwarming Christmas classic with an all-star cast, including Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson and more. A street-wise teen from Baltimore who has been raised by a single mother travels to New York City to spend the Christmas holiday with his grandparents he’s never met, where he embarks on a surprising and inspirational journey. Packed with music and powerful performances.

For details or more information: Contact the BLM team at love@uuplattsburgh.org.

Music During The Week, 2025

Fun. Joy. Connection.
Activities for Younger Children. 

We’re always concocting ways to involve our younger folks with music. Sometimes we have some practices with pitched percussion (glockenspiels, tone bars, desk bells) in preparation for a song inside a Sunday service. Sometimes we meet on winter Saturdays for Music and Story.

Contact Jo El Miano at joellen.miano@gmail.com or 518-578-5821 or re@uuplattsburgh.org

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For years, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Plattsburgh has been known as a host of public concerts featuring bluegrass, jazz and folk genres, among others, through its distinguished Palmer Street Coffeehouse. The coffeehouse remains closed at this time.