Thank God for church ladies with typewriters. They're Back! Those wonderful Church Bulletins!
These sentences (with all the BLOOPERS) actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services:

Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say 'Hell' to someone who doesn't care much about you.

Miss Charlene Mason sang 'I will not pass this way again,’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment, and gracious hostility. Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 p.m. - prayer and medication to follow.

The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the church basement Friday at 7 p.m. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

Weight Watchers will meet at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use the large double door at the side entrance.

The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

This evening at 7 p.m. there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 a.m. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.

The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new campaign slogan last Sunday: 'I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours.’

Above forwarded by Elizabeth Caldwell-Bissell - thanks!

What is the UU Definition of Sin? A discussion group in which everyone agrees with each other.

Asked if he belonged to any organized religion, the man responded, "Oh no; I'm a Unitarian Universalist."

A lifelong unchurched man suddenly develops a vague religious urge and decides to join a church--any church. So he sets out to find one.

His first stop is a Roman Catholic church where he asks what he has to do to join. The priest mentions diligent study and the affirmation of the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, then--just to see how much the man knows--asks him where Jesus was born. "Pittsburgh," he answers. "Get out!" cries the shocked priest.

Next stop is Southern Baptist where the seeker is told he would have to learn Bible verses, swear belief in the Nicene and Apostles' creeds, swear off booze, and be baptized ("By immersion, not just some sissy sprinklin'"). The Baptist preacher then, to see how much this man knows, asks him where Jesus was born. "Philadelphia?" he asks tentatively (once bitten, twice shy). "Get out, you heathen!" yells the preacher.

Our perplexed protagonist finally walks into a Unitarian church where he is told all he has to do is sign a membership card. "You mean I don't have to renounce anything, swear to anything, or be dunked in anything?" "That's right. We have no special tests for membership, no dogma. We support total individual freedom of belief." "Then I'll join! But tell me--where was Jesus born?" "Why, Bethlehem, of course." The man's face lights up. "I knew it was some place in Pennsylvania!"

True story: I was brought up Unitarian. I heard the minister say "God" one time: He had come to our house and he said "Oh, god, I forgot my pipe."

There was a terrible car accident. A woman was lying in the street, covered in blood. Someone in the crowd shouted, "Call a priest!". The woman opened her eyes and said, "I'm a Unitarian.""Then call a math teacher!"

The only thing a UU can't tolerate is intolerance.

What two things do UUs and Dracula have in common? They both have origins in Translyvania and they both shy away from the cross.

Three religious persons are discussing when life begins.

The Catholic says: Life begins at the moment of conception.

The Jew says: Life begins at the moment of birth.

The Unitarian says: You're both wrong. Life begins when the last child goes to college and the dog dies.

SOME FAMOUS UU QUOTES

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do."  - Edward Everett Hale

"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences." - Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

Unitarian Universalism is not a rock to hold onto. It is a river to swim in.

If you want a set of beliefs to hold onto, if you want rules to guide your life in all situations, if you want a foundation for a spiritual fortress, you will probably be disappointed with us. However, if you want to dive into the river and explore, if you think that what you experience and what you do is more important than what you believe, if you want to be with people who engage in this world to promote well being for all, we may have something to offer. Life itself is more like a river than a rock. Life is in flux, it changes, twists and turns, ebbs and flows. When a river encounters a boulder, the boulder may win for a while. But eventually, even the most massive stone is worn away by the currents of time.

Unitarian Universalism is about learning to swim in the river rather than climbing out of it onto a rock. - Rev. Doug Kraft, Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento

"If you accept that God created everything, you have to accept that she created a universe with a great deal of diversity, with many, many ways of getting the same job done. I can look out my window and see literally hundreds of species of plants, dozens of species of birds, at night you can see big stars, little stars, and so on. Would it make sense, then, that that same God would turn around and say "you can only know me this one way, you must worship with only these sets of words, you must do things this way and no other"? I'm still thinking about that..." - Bluejay Adametz

“Theology is the reflection upon and criticism of meanings, values, and convictions. One person with a conviction is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only beliefs or feelings. Conviction … combines reason and feeling with the will to act.” - Rev. Richard S. Gilbert (In Introduction to Building Your Own Theology

"The reading which I love best is the scriptures of the several nations, though it happens that I am better acquainted with those of the Hindoos, the Chinese, and the Persians, than of the Hebrews, which I have come to last. Give me one of these bibles, and you have silenced me for awhile."
- Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1:72)

"May your life preach more loudly than your lips." - William Ellery Channing

"Church is a place where you get to practice what it means to be human." - James Luther Adams

"We Unitarian Universalists have inherited a magnificent theological legacy. In a sweeping answer to creeds that divide the human family, Unitarianism proclaims that we spring from a common source; Universalism, that we share a common destiny."
- Forrest Church

"Faith is a commitment to live as if certain things are true, and thereby help to make them so. Faith is a commitment to live as if life is a wondrous mystery, as if life is good, as if love is divine, as if we are responsible for the well-being of those around us.... Faith is a leap of the moral imagination that connects the world as it is to the world as it might become."
- Galen Guengrich

"Our kindred hearts and minds unite us to build a church that shall be free - free from the bonds that bind the mind to narrow thought and lifeless creed; free from a social code that fails to serve the cause of human need: a freedom that reveres the past, but trusts the dawning future more; and bids the soul, in search of truth, adventure boldly and explore."
- Marion Franklin Ham, "As Tranquil Streams" Hymn 145.

"An idea is a curious thing. It will not work unless you do." - Jaeger's Facts

"The Church of Tomorrow will not be of uniform doctrine or of identical organization. There will be unity of spirit, but not uniformity of creed or rite or polity. There will be variety, but not intolerance. There will be cooperation for holiness, but not conformity of theological opinion. There will be identity of ethical enthusiasm but diversity of administrations."
- Florence Kollock Crooker (Universalist minister, from "The Church of Tomorrow," 1911)

"Unitarian Universalism offers us a faith that challenges our energy usage and confronts us with hunger and injustice around the world without giving inadequate simplistic answers. It offers the harder path of respect for all beings and for the Earth, and calls us to be accountable for our actions. We are responsible for our own spirituality, our own salvation, and for doing all that we can to make the world better. "
- UU minister Rev. Bob Klein

"Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the attendant of truth. Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery. A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief. Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false. Let no one fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is the testing of belief. The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing."
- Robert T. Weston