Welcome to Our Church
We are a warm and friendly congregation. We welcome all who seek to find meaning in our busy lives, make connections with others and search for answers to life's big questions.
Upcoming Events
Meditation with Vibay Weisbecker
Day and Time
Wednesday Jan 7, 6:00 PM - 7:00 PMDetails
We’ll continue our First Wednesday meditation with Vibay Weisbecker, creating space for reflection and grounding in the middle of the week. This will be in person and online.
Parking is available on the street in front of the church. In addition, there are a limited number of parking spaces behind the church in the alley-way. A handicap accessible entrance with an electric lift is available on the east side of the building next to the side entrance.
Santa Paula Cinema Society
Day and Time
Friday Jan 9, 7:00 PM - Saturday Jan 10, 9:00 PMDetails
From the Watergate era of “All the President’s Men,” we fast-forward two decades to a very different sort of White House-based film – “The American President” (1995), directed by Rob Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin.
Michael Douglas supplies one of his most charming performances in this romantic comedy as President Andrew Shepherd, a widowed commander-in-chief who sees his approval ratings take a nose dive when he initiates a romance with lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Benning). Remember when something like that mattered?
Sorkin’s signature “walk-and-talk” screenplay is sharp, and the film succeeds in humanizing Shepherd through mundanities, such as a world leader trying to figure out how to order flowers without a credit card. In a double-dose of nostalgia from our current perspective, the film (like its director) is idealistic without apology – culminating in a feel-good closing speech that could have been lifted straight out of a Frank Capra film of the 1940’s.
Politics was probably never as civil as it is depicted here by Reiner and Sorkin (or by Capra, for that matter). Yet it’s fascinating to consider that at one time audiences could be sold on the idea of it being possible. Can we still today? We’ll find out. Also featuring Martin Sheen and Michael J. Fox.
Friday January 9, 2026
Universalist Unitarian Church of Santa Paula
740 E. Main St
7:00 PM • FREE ! • Enter Side Door
Parking is available on the street in front of the church. In addition, there are a limited number of parking spaces behind the church in the alley-way. A handicap accessible entrance with an electric lift is available on the east side of the building next to the side entrance.
Service: Practicing Resistance: Refusing Forgetfulness
Day and Time
Sunday Jan 11, 10:30 AM - 11:30 AMDetails
Carolyn Bjerke and Alice Henderson
Resistance does not always look like marching or shouting. Sometimes it looks like remembering what others would prefer we forget.
This service explores resistance as a practice of memory, remembering our values, our histories, and our shared responsibility to one another. Drawing on the legacy of the Edict of Torda (1568) and Unitarian Universalism’s long commitment to freedom of conscience, we reflect on how truth-telling and historical honesty help us resist denial and erasure.
Parking is available on the street in front of the church. In addition, there are a limited number of parking spaces behind the church in the alley-way. A handicap accessible entrance with an electric lift is available on the east side of the building next to the side entrance.
Service: Practicing Resistance: Community, Not Heroes
Day and Time
Sunday Jan 18, 10:30 AM - 11:30 AMDetails
Carolyn Bjerke and Ruth Ricards
We often tell stories of resistance that center singular heroes. But lasting change is almost always made by communities, imperfect, interdependent, and persistent.
On World Religion Day and the weekend honoring Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., this service resists the temptation to sanitize King’s legacy or reduce justice work to individual bravery. Instead, we honor the collective labor, shared risk, and moral imagination required to build beloved community across difference
Parking is available on the street in front of the church. In addition, there are a limited number of parking spaces behind the church in the alley-way. A handicap accessible entrance with an electric lift is available on the east side of the building next to the side entrance.
Meditation with Carolyn Bjerke
Day and Time
Wednesday Jan 21, 6:00 PM - Saturday Jan 31, 7:00 PMDetails
On Wednesday, January 21, we’ll hold a Taizé-style meditative service, an evening of simple singing, readings, silence, and candlelight, inspired by the contemplative tradition of the Taizé community. This service isn’t about learning something new or solving anything. It’s about resting the nervous system, sharing quiet, and remembering that we don’t carry life, or resistance, alone.
Parking is available on the street in front of the church. In addition, there are a limited number of parking spaces behind the church in the alley-way. A handicap accessible entrance with an electric lift is available on the east side of the building next to the side entrance.
Service: Practicing Resistance: Protecting What Sustains Us
Day and Time
Sunday Jan 25, 10:30 AM - 11:30 AMDetails
Carolyn Bjerke and Ellen Deeb
Urgency tells us there is no time to rest. Despair tells us joy is frivolous. But both are powerful tools of harm.
This service explores resistance as the protection of what keeps us human: rest, joy, tenderness, and attention to our own limits. Drawing from spiritual traditions that insist we are more than what we produce or endure, we reflect on how exhaustion dulls our moral clarity—and how care restores it.
Parking is available on the street in front of the church. In addition, there are a limited number of parking spaces behind the church in the alley-way. A handicap accessible entrance with an electric lift is available on the east side of the building next to the side entrance.
Our Congregation
Are you looking for a friendly home where you can explore the larger questions of life with those who bring many perspectives? Are you looking for a faith community that looks outward to the larger community to make a difference in the world? Are you looking for a place that you can share your gifts as well as your concerns and your interests? Would you like to find a place that has a Spiritual Growth Center so we can grow together in spirit and health? Would you like to be able to laugh and cry together, sing together and share our lives? We would love to welcome you to our small but mighty faith home.
About Unitarian Universalism
We are people of all ages, people of many backgrounds, and people of many beliefs. We are brave, curious and compassionate thinkers and doers. We create spirituality and community beyond boundaries, working for more justice and more love in our own lives and in the world.
Church of the Larger Fellowship
Unitarian Universalist Association
LGBTQ Welcoming Congregation
Pacific Western Region of the UUA
