Sanctuary United Church of Christ

Weekly Vigil: Peace & Justice for Immigrants
2026-04-07 16:45 - 17:45, 2026-03-31 16:45 - 17:45, 2026-03-24 16:45 - 17:45, 2026-03-17 16:45 - 17:45, 2026-03-10 16:45 - 17:45, 2026-03-03 16:45 - 17:45, 2026-02-24 16:45 - 17:45, 2026-02-17 16:45 - 17:45 (America/New_York) and 5 more dates | Unitarian Universalist Church, 147 High St, Medford, MA, United States
As we witness our neighbors in the United States accosted by masked government agents, incarcerated, and in many cases deported without due process, we believe that we must as people of conscience stand up
against this violation of human rights and United States law and the cruel upending of countless people’s lives.
Please join this standout in front of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Medford, 147 High St., each Tuesday, 4:45-5:45.
This is a silent, peaceful demonstration.
Please bring a sign if you wish.
For more information, contact Steve Schmidt lesapeuruu@gmail.com or Liz
Ammons elizabeth.ammons@tufts.edu

Easter Worship: Rev. Wendy Preaching @ Shiloh Baptist w/ Holy Communion
2026-04-05 11:00 - 12:30 | Shiloh Baptist Church, 1 Holton St, Medford, MA, United States
Click Here for Details About this Worship and online access

Sunday Soul Circle: Love Calls Your Name
2026-04-05 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb…” -John 20:1
Easter does not begin in certainty. It begins in the half-light. In damp grass. In grief that has not yet loosened its grip. It begins with women carrying spices and sorrow, walking toward a tomb and wondering how in the world they will move the stone.
And maybe that is why this story still meets us so well. We know about stones. We know what feels too heavy, too sealed up, too far gone. We know what it is to stand before something that looks unmovable – final. But Easter has always been a story about holy surprise: the stone moved, the name spoken, the garden suddenly alive with more than anyone expected.
This Easter Sunday in Soul Circle, we will listen for the places where life is still rising among us. Together we will reflect on what feels blocked, what it means to be called by name, and what new life may be quietly greening in the garden of our lives.
Come for a gentle, honest, hope-streaked Easter morning in circle.
with love, Rev. Wendy
Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
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Sunday Soul Circle: Palms, Passion, Presence
2026-03-29 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 2:5
Palm Sunday arrives with branches in our hands and hosannas on our lips. But beneath the song is a harder invitation: to follow Jesus beyond the parade and into the aching heart of Holy Week. This is the week where praise turns, truth sharpens, tables tremble, love pours itself out, and the shadows grow long.
This Sunday in Soul Circle, we will let poetry guide us into the depth and tension of the week ahead. Through prayer, quiet reflection, and honest sharing, we will make space for the movement from celebration to courage, from admiration to discipleship, from waving palms to walking the road.
Don’t Skip the Shadows on the Way to Resurrection
Let this be the place where we enter them with intention. Come bring your hosannas, your questions, your weariness, your love. Come let Holy Week ask something real of you.
with love, Rev. Wendy
Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
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Dial by your location
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Sunday Soul Circle: For the Hard, Holy Road🚶‍♀️✨
2026-03-22 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Kneeling Where Love Leads
“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. ” —Luke 9:51
There are seasons when faith feels like Bethlehem: tender, lit from within, full of wonder and nearness. And then there are seasons when faith asks more of us. The angels thin out. The road darkens. The conversation turns from birth to death, from comfort to courage, from beauty to costly love. Lent is that road.
This Soul Circle draws on the poetry of Ann Weems from Kneeling in Jerusalem, and makes room for the reluctance, ache, tenderness, and truth that often rise as we walk deeper into this season.
Together, we will listen for what the road is asking of us now: where we are resisting, where we are weary, where we are being invited to turn back for the lost, and where love is still leading us, even when the light is poor.
Come as you are. Come thoughtful, tired, uncertain, open – for there is room on the road for the whole of you.
And, God has gone on toward Jerusalem so we do not walk alone.
with love, Rev. Wendy
Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
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Dial by your location
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• +1 305 224 1968 US
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Sunday Soul Circle: Who Told You THAT?🫢👀
2026-03-15 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Voices, Visions, and Veto Power

Sifting Through Pressure, Power, and Purpose
“One does not live by bread alone.” —Luke 4:4
Every day, we are surrounded by voices that want a say in who we are and how we live. Some are loud with urgency. Some speak through fear, duty, expectation, or the need to prove ourselves. Some promise safety. Some promise power. Some sound so familiar we barely notice how deeply they shape our discernment.
In this Soul Circle, we will explore the voices that influence our choices, our identity, and our sense of calling. We will reflect on the pressures to produce, perform, protect, and control. And, we will ask which voices truly align with our deepest values, vision, and purpose.
Through music, guided meditation, and poetry, we will make room to listen for the sacred beneath the noise. Together, we’ll practice noticing which voices deserve authority, which ones need boundaries, and what it feels like in the body to come back into alignment with what is true.
with love, Rev. Wendy

Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Dial by your location
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc1XnzubHD
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Sunday Soul Circle: When Women Speak
2026-03-08 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Women’s History – Holy Courage

“What Zelophehad’s daughters are saying is right.” —Numbers 27:7
During Women’s History Month, Sanctuary Soul Circle will gather around the story of the five daughters of Zelophehad, a handful of sisters in the wilderness who refused to be erased. In a world ordered around male inheritance, they stood together, spoke clearly, and changed the future.
This simple circle will invite us to breathe, listen, and reflect on what this ancient story still stirs now. We will listen, refect, and hold prayer together – about dignity, courage, refusing erasure, and claiming one’s rightful place. The daughters of Zelophehad did not ask for scraps. They named what was right, and God said they were right.
Come if you are hungry for a sacred space that honors women’s courage, collective truth-telling, and the holy work of making room for fuller humanity. Come to remember that sometimes faith sounds like a clear voice saying, “This is not right,” and sometimes history changes because a few people say it together.
with love, Rev. Wendy

Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Dial by your location
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc1XnzubHD
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All Hands Meeting - Committee of the Whole/Leadership Circle
2026-03-03 19:00 - 20:00 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82581670394?pwd=[REDACTED]
Committee of the Whole/Leadership Circle Meeting
All are welcome! Gather online!
Did you miss last month’s meeting? Here’s where you can find minutes from previous meetings. (https://medfordchurch.org/minutes/)
Here’s this month’s Agenda for the Sanctuary Legacy Process.
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Rev. Wendy Preaching @ Shiloh Baptist
2026-03-01 11:00 - 12:30, 2026-02-01 11:00 - 12:30 | Shiloh Baptist Church, 1 Holton St, Medford, MA, United States

Sunday Soul Circle: Rend and Return
2026-03-01 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
“Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. ” —Joel 2.12-13
Lent begins with a word that sounds sharp: rend. But Joel is not suggesting it as a performance. Nor as punishment. This is about an opening. An honest cracking of the heart so we can see what we have kept hidden, what we have carried, what we have tried to keep in shadow.
This Sunday’s Sanctuary Soul Circle will guide us through Joel’s invitation and treat repentance as holy reorientation, not shame. Come as you are. We will breathe, listen, share gently, and practice a simple ritual of release and return. No fixing. No pretending. Just a path home.
with love, Rev. Wendy
Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Dial by your location
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
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Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc1XnzubHD
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Sunday Soul Circle: 40 Days of Good Sh*t
2026-02-22 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
—Mary Oliver
Lent, but make it honest.
This year we’re not giving up chocolate. We’re giving up the lie that the worst thing in the room is the only thing in the room.
Inspired by Nadia Bolz-Weber’s “40 Days of Good Sh*t,” we’re practicing disciplined attention.
One small good thing. Every day. Something real. Something embodied. Not sourced from the internet.
The light through the window. The elevator button someone pressed for you. The crocus breaking through frozen soil.
We are not ignoring the world. We are paying attention to it in real time.
Join us. 🌱
#40DaysofGoodShit #LentPractice #SoulCircle #HolyAttention
Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Dial by your location
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
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Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc1XnzubHD
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Sunday Soul Circle: Late Winter, Tender Nerves
2026-02-15 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.” –Sinclair Lewis
February has a way of stripping things down.
The extra energy disappears, the tolerance disappears, the ability to keep pretending everything is fine disappears. And often we assume something is wrong with us, when late winter may simply be revealing how little buffer the nervous system has left after months of low light and long pushing.
For many, this time of year comes with a strange whiplash: the light starts to lengthen, our bodies lean toward spring, and then winter snaps back.
Time feels delayed, heavy, stuck. If you’ve felt numb but restless, tired but unable to rest, unmotivated but anxious, emotionally flat or out of sync with time… you’re not alone. Maybe you are one who loves winter, maybe none of this makes any sense, but this week we will listen to the season and find it’s connection to our energy.
In this virtual Soul Circle we’ll name February – honestly – and reflect with Elijah under the broom tree, where God meets exhaustion with practical mercy: rest and bread, not shame. We’ll listen to our nervous systems, offer prayers for ourselves and one another, and leave with a few simple “preservation practices” for crossing the threshold alive, without forcing spring.
with love, Rev. Wendy

Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Dial by your location
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc1XnzubHD
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Canceled - Sunday Soul Circle
2026-02-08 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
This morning’s Soul Circle is cancelled due to illness. See you next week.
Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
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Sunday Soul Circle: 💔 + ❤️ Looking for a Lifeline?
2026-02-01 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
“Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.” -Romans 12:12
Micro Joys, Macro Grief: Small Wonders Help Us Survive
When the grief of the world feels too big to bear, sometimes the smallest joys are what carry us through: a deep breath you didn’t know you were holding, a warm shower on a cold morning, a song that meets you right where you are.
This week at Soul Circle, we’ll gather in the spirit of Glo Atanmo’s truth: “Micro joys are how we survive macro grief.” We’ll name what hurts. We’ll notice what helps. We’ll breathe, share, and remember that even here—especially here—beauty still finds a way.
Come as you are. Bring your weary, your wonder and leave with a lifeline.
Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Dial by your location
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
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Sunday Soul Circle: Come Get Your Name Back
2026-01-25 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
“And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’” –Luke 1:22b
This Sunday, Sanctuary Soul Circle heads to the Jordan River, where Jesus steps into the water and the sky breaks open. Before Jesus preaches a sermon or performs a miracle, God speaks three names over him: Beloved. Belonging. Delight. Not as a reward, but as a beginning.
If you’re tired of carrying untrue names, if you’re longing to feel grounded again, or if you simply need a place where your nervous system can unclench for an hour, come. We’ll listen to a vivid retelling of Jesus’ baptism, connect to our own belovedness, and practice returning to God’s good name for us!.
No perfection required. Just bring your whole self. The water is waiting.
with love, Rev. Wendy
Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Dial by your location
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
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Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc1XnzubHD
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Rev. Wendy Preaching @ Shiloh Baptist
2026-01-18 11:00 - 12:30 | Shiloh Baptist Church, 1 Holton St, Medford, MA, United States
Details for this service and the Themes/Speakers – see the Shiloh Webpage

Sunday Soul Circle: Brick by Brick, Choice by Choice
2026-01-18 08:30 - 09:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
This King Holiday weekend, Sanctuary Soul Circle is leaning into Dr. King’s central vision: Building the Beloved Community, not as a distant dream, but as a daily practice. Not passive hope, but active construction. 🧱🕊️
Many of us are tired. Tender. On edge. And still… here we are. This circle will be a place to tell the truth without becoming brittle, to remember that we’re not meant to carry the world alone, and to practice a love that has muscle, boundaries, and forward motion.
Scripture Lesson: 1 Corinthians 12:12–27“When one member suffers, all suffer together with it; when one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”
In the circle, we’ll share a brief reflection, grounding breath prayer, and an embodied practice: each person will name one “brick” they’re laying this week toward Beloved Community, one concrete choice that turns faith into hands-and-feet. You’ll leave with something you can actually do, not just something nice to feel.
MLK Quote to hold us steady:

“The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community.”

Come as you are. Come weary, come willing, come curious. We’re not trying to be heroes. We’re practicing extraordinary love the ordinary way: day after day after day
Sanctuary UCC Sunday Spiritual Circle – for prayer, care, reflection, and connection.
~~~~
Wendy Miller Olapade – 617.592.5853 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82882360638?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Dial by your location
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
Meeting ID: 828 8236 0638
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc1XnzubHD
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