NOVEMBER MINISTRY THEME: TIME
Annual Ministry Theme: Life
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2025
A THANKSGIVING SERMON BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
SERVICE STARTS
AT 10:30AM
Sunday, November 30, 2025
A Thanksgiving Sermon by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
10:30am with livestream on YouTube
Listen to Reverend Rebecca read the text of Rev. Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s Thanksgiving Sermon. Higginson’s critique of slavery led to a quick ending of his ministry in Newburyport. The message in this sermon applies to our country today and needs to be taken seriously. The service will conclude with a special ritual of peace as we enter the holiday season.
“All… religions show the same disparity between belief and practice, and each is safe till it tries to exclude the rest. But falsehood begins when you measure the ebb of any other religion against the flood-tide of your own. There is a noble and a base side to every history.”
–Rev. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Minister of FRSUU (1847-1849)
The Latest News & Events
2025 FRSUU Road Trip Raffle!
Want to get away? Enter the 2025 FRSUU Road Trip Raffle! Grand Prize (Value up to $2,500): imagine a weekend at a 5-star hotel in Boston, staying slop-side at your favorite mountain, relaxing in an oceanfront suite on the coast of Maine...wherever you'd like to go!...
29th Annual Mother’s Day Walk for Peace
Sunday, May 11 Town Field Park, Dorchester, 8am Join our FRS Walk Team and be home in time for your own Mother's Day celebration! Great exercise, great fellowship! The Louis D. Brown Peace Institute offers healing programs to prevent cycles of retaliatory violence....
Exploring Elderhood Together: Have a SEAT!
Thursday, May 15, 2025 Exploring Elderhood Together: Have a SEAT! LMH Main Room, 1-2:30pm Exploring Elderhood Together invites you to our last program of this church year. FRS’s Nancy McCarthy will lead us in a set of functional fitness moves. Functional fitness...
Rev. Rebecca’s Book Launch
Sunday, May 4, 12-2pm, Sanctuary and Lower Meetinghouse Join us for the launch of Rev. Rebecca's new sermon book, Guided by Love: A Minister's Thoughts on Love, Hope, and Justice! Rev. Rebecca will read from her book and host a Q&A in the Sanctuary. A reception...
In the Spirit: “When the world is on fire” by Reverend Rebecca M. Bryan
Published in The Daily News on April 11, 2025 The recent months have ushered in tremendous and devastating changes in our country. Our democracy, government agencies and international relations, which we assumed were staples of our nation, are being torn...
Exploring Elderhood Together: Better Vision, Movement, and Balance
Thursday, April 17, LMH Main Room, 1-2:30pm. Exploring Elderhood presents: An Experiential Program to Support Better Vision, Movement, and Balance with Ree Coleman We are all keenly aware of our sense of sight and how our sight and eyes support us each day. Also...
Know Your Rights!
Tuesday, April 15, Sanctuary, 6-8pm Join us for a Know Your Rights workshop. Learn about essential legal rights of immigrants, how to handle interactions with law enforcement or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and information to protect yourself and your...
Be the Light: Make Love Real
On Sunday, March 2 we kicked off our 2025 Annual Giving Campaign! Our theme: Be the Light: Make Love Real! This theme is both a statement of our values and a call to loving action. There is no better time, no time more deserving than now, to show how we can answer...
Contemplative Worship at FRS: Touching the Sacred Within
Led by Rev. Alan Seale. When: The first Sunday of January, February, March and April at 8am in the Sanctuary Contemplation has been described as “a long loving look at the real” and “a pure intuition of being, born of love” (21st-century mystic William McNamara)....
Tour the FRS Campus and Buildings
Follow our drone footage as we fly to the top of FRS’s steeple featuring a glass-eyed gilded weathercock which overlooks downtown Newburyport and Merrimack River. From there, you’ll get a first-hand look at our campus grounds and the interior of our meetinghouse and Sanctuary which dates back to 1801. Rev. Rebecca, our Senior Minister, welcomes you and ALL who seek a place of spiritual community and faith here. Organ music provided by former Director of Church Music Justin Murphy-Mancini on our 1834 Joseph Alley organ. Piano music provided by Director of Church Music Nick Place. We close with a view of the bell from the foundry of Paul Revere and Sons bell.
