While I focus on Universalist worship resources, the book digitization revolution has brought back to light Unitarian service books, too — by which I include comprehensive prayerbooks and other resources (often with hymns) that have service elements.
Here are some I’ve found recently, in chronological order; click through to download or read online. (There are others I’ve writtem about before.)
- The Altar at Home; selections and prayers for domestic worship (1869; 2nd series) by James Perkins Walker.
- Order of Morning Service and Selection of Psalms for Channing Church, Newton (1892) by George H. Ellis.
- Church worship: in readings, songs and prayers (1892) by Third Unitarian Church, Chicago (Google link)
- Five Services for Public Worship with Services for Special Occasions (1895) by American Unitarian Association.
- Services of Worship: Used at the Church of the Unity (Springfield, Mass.) (1895)
- Book of Common Worship (1913) by American Unitarian Association.
Does the UUA have a central digitized library of these older publications (Unitarian and Universalist)? Like a google-books equivalent of Unitarian and Universalist content?
No, but the British Unitarians do, after a fashion. http://www.unitarian.org.uk/docs/publications/index.php
First I would like to say how much I have grown to like your blog over the years. I still don’t understand some subjects in it.
Secondly, last night I saw Frances Ha, a film about a twenty-something college graduate trying to make a living in New York City. The film shows her attending Unitarian Universalist services when she goes back to visit her parents in Sacramento, California. It shows the congregation singing “This Little Light of Mine” out of the old hymnal Hymns of the Living Spirit. It is not every day that you see that in a film. I recognized not only the hymnal but also the flaming chalice. There were no obvious clues such as a shot of a sign outside.