An award-winning preacher and musician, Rev. Fred Small is available to lead worship for your congregation, including leading congregational singing.

Among his sermons on responding to climate change:

The Peace of Trees. "The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence," wrote Trappist monk and peace activist Thomas Merton. "The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. . . . It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful." As we work together for social and environmental justice, how do we remain grounded in a peaceful spirit? What can we learn from trees?

Risking Joy
In times of suffering and danger, joy may seem unrealistic, even irresponsible. Yet in the face of injustice, violence, and ecological breakdown, joy may be indispensable. We can nourish and cultivate it.

How to Love This World
In the face of intersecting crises like climate change, pandemic, and racism, it’s easy to become disheartened. How do we sustain our spirits in these challenging times? How do we know what action to take? How do we love this world?

Journey to Environmental Justice. For decades, too many of us have viewed the struggles against pollution and systemic racism as unrelated or even at odds. In this time of pandemic and antiracist uprising, more and more people are coming to understand the inescapable connections between these movements. Rev. Small will tell his own story and invite us all into more powerful activism.

Radical Hope. Any contemplation of global climate change, its frightening consequences, and the tardiness and timidity of nations in response is necessarily a meditation on hope.  When the earth and its peoples are in such distress, where do we find hope?

Praise Be the Flood. Scientists predict that climate change will have dire consequences for humanity and the planet we inhabit.  Can the climate crisis move us to change course and build a new society grounded in justice, equity, and compassion?

Fred also performs rites of passage such as weddings, child dedications, funerals, and memorial services.

To engage Fred for preaching, worship leading, or rites of passage, please email him at fsmall@uuma.org.