Join us for the service “Beyond Self-Reliance”, by Rev. John Ballance.  This sermon examines the tension between self-reliance, as famously espoused by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the attributes needed to achieve the goal of the beloved community.  John has been a member of Unitarian Universalist Church of the North Hills in Franklin Park since 1982. He has BS and MS degrees in metallurgical engineering from North Carolina State University. He has been a research metallurgist in the steel industry and a copper alloys producer. He served as editor of a technical journal and then as executive director of a professional society for 25 years before retiring in 2008. He attended Meadville Lombard Theological School, receiving a Master of Divinity degree in 2016. He was ordained by his congregation in 2018. His ministry both while in seminary and since has been as a volunteer chaplain in Allegheny County Jail.