Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills

On my continuing search for a local church to call home, today I visited the Unitarian Church of Verdugo Hills. One of the reasons I chose this church because it’s close Ito home and the particular service outlined on the church calendar on their website sounded interesting. I wasn’t disappointed!
It’s a small church and I blinked and missed it the first time I drove by. It’s located on the corner of First and Dunsmore in LaCrescenta just south of Foothill Blvd. It doesn’t really have a parking lot to speak of (which is kind of what I was looking for when I drove by the first time) and since it’s located in a residential neighborhood, street parking can be spotty.
It’s a small congregation as well but friendly. I really have come to enjoy the differences between the various services that I have attended so far. I enjoy the lighting of the chalice and I find the tossing of the stone practice really interesting. Only the last two UU churches I’ve attended did that.
I actually like singing from the hymn book too! It’s a nice way of connecting to and interacting with the congregation. Once again, only the last two UU churches I’ve attended sang from hymn books. The first one played top 40 hits over the PA system. That too was interesting and I liked it too. Definitely indicative of the much younger congregation than the latter two churches.
The service at Verdugo Hills today seemed like a special service celebrating the summer solstice and they had a guest speaker and a guest performer — a career dancer who put on a stunning performance. I was absolutely mesmerized! Kind of reminded me of a southern baptist service though with all the singing and dancing. JMHO :)
Personally, I thought the best singer was the guest pastor who was an older woman who had the most incredible voice. I found out later that she’s a music teacher. WOW! If she plays anything like she sings, she’d be an incredible teacher.
So far, the one thing I’ve learned from my search for spiritual sanctuary is that I definitely need more research. Based on my three visits with three different churches, I don’t have enough info to make an educated decision. There’s another UU church over in Studio City that I could go and visit if I found the three local UU churches completely unimpressive, but that simply isn’t the case.
There are appealing aspects of all three but without more info, I can’t really say which one appeals to me the most. On a scale of 1 – 5, I’d definitely give the Unitarian Church of Verdugo Hills 4stars. Stay tuned for more though.