First Parish Church of Groton

We are a community of adults, youth, and children seeking to deepen spiritually, to take care of one another, and to be a blessing to the world.

We are a school for compassion, gratitude, and generosity.

These are some of the things we care about at First Parish Church: We value spiritual depth, spiritual growth, and spiritual maturity. We value service to others, especially to those outside the walls of the church and to those in need. We value generosity and view increasing generosity as part of the spiritual life. We value being a “permission granting” church. By this we mean saying yes to new ideas and possibilities which are consistent with and further the mission and values of the church. We value taking care of each other. We will be asked to take care of the members and friends of our community who are in need. We will receive care when we are in need.

As a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association, we affirm and promote the principles of the UUA. As a Welcoming Congregation, we actively welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people as full participants in the life of the church.

In other words, our congregation and our Unitarian Universalist faith are engaging, participatory, and inclusive. All are welcome at this table. Join us!

Welcoming Congregation, 15th anniversary (photo by Susan Fry)

Click on the “latest news” badge on any page to be taken to a chronological (and searchable) list of events and items of interest to members of this community. The newest items will be on top.

In addition to appearing on the Latest News page, the news items are listed below. Click the title links to see more details.

Words from the Water Communion, 2023 [ 09/12/2023 05:51 PM ]

Every year in September, on the occasion of the first service of the church year, we hold a ceremony we are now calling the Water Communion — the beginning of the process of making the holy water we will use throughout the year for many purposes, including blessing infants and sending young adults on their way. Each member of the community brings some water from somewhere their life has taken them over the summer.

We begin the ceremony by pouring some of last year’s holy water into a large vessel. This water contains traces of the water from each year before, stretching back now 21 years. Then each member of the community adds their water to the mix and speaks a single word. As we do every year, we have gathered these words together into a single image (click the link to open a new window). Larger words were spoken more frequently.

In this second pandemic year of 2021 the water collection occurred outside, at the first in-person gathering of this community in 19 months, with masks and social distancing.

For comparison, here are our words from 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008. (The words for 2012 were, alas, not recorded.)

Here is a brief video featuring all of the words from 2008 to 2019. (The password is the same as for the Members area of the church website.)

Audio and Transcripts of Sermons at FPCoG [ 10/04/2020 08:09 PM ]

Here are links to audio of recent sermons at FPCoG. All the available sermons going back to 2008 are linked from this page.

August 15, 2021: ( YouTube )

August 8, 2021: ( YouTube )

Summer services, July 4 – August 1, 2021: Follow this link to the Members area.

June 20, 2021: ( YouTube )

June 13, 2021: ( YouTube )

June 6, 2021: ( YouTube )

>> All of 2021’s and 2020’s sermons