This deep knowing is at the heart of religious community. The word religion comes from Latin roots that mean, to bind together. We are bound together by covenant; by our shared values; by our love for one another, and our willingness to disagree without disconnecting.

This world is full of all the things - the beauty, the horror, the promise, the pain, the long stretch of forever, and the tiny instant of time we are given to experience it all. Where will our help materialize?

How do we navigate, together, in an uncertain direction? By Love. My certainty stems from my faith in our Universalist heritage that affirms there is no being outside of the transcendent force of Love.

It is an act of faith, to insist on Joy, and always entails some level of risk. Just as the crocus pushing through mud risks an April snowfall, we are also part of the nature of things that rise up from the muck over and over again, season after season.

Julian, do you not know? Do you not know about sorrow? And Julian, do you not know? Do you not know about pain? As our November newsletter was approaching final edits, horrific news of our country’s 565th mass shooting of the calendar year broke out of the city of Lewiston, Maine. As sometimes...

This month we are delighted to share a voice from our pews. Author Rumni Saha recently shared a version of this essay with her congregation, and sent a copy to our NER office as well. We asked her permission to share it with you. Doing so is a faithful risk by our sibling in faith, and Faithful...

[This post is a follow up to "When We Wonder Together" (Practice Makes Possible - March 7, 2023)] In March, the theme for the bi-monthly gathering for our community of practice Spiritual Leadership for Culture Change (SL4CC) was "Discernment for Faithful Risking." We distinguished discernment fro...

In our experience, most Unitarian Universalist congregations are not culturally predisposed to using discernment as a way to determine direction, focus or action. Our congregations generally use "the democratic process" in which group decisions are made by majority vote....

In 2020 General Assembly delegates voted to begin a review of Article II of the UUA Bylaws. Article II is the covenant between and among UU congregations. It currently contains our seven Principles and six Sources. It also has language about inclusion and freedom of belief....

The point of a community of practice is for people who want to get better at something to learn from each other through regular interaction. Even people new to a field can help the group learn. Their observations and questions can identify unrecognized practices and raise awareness of which...

“How are you?” I asked my DRE colleague on our recent phone call. Her response was not exactly typical, but becoming more familiar. She’d had a bout of Covid about six or eight months before. Although she’d been quite sick, it could have been much worse, and she was grateful for the vaccines...

Last year, at their request, I met with Follen Responds to Racism (FRR), an anti-racism team at the Follen Community Church in Lexington, MA. We had an animated conversation. They told me about their work and the many ways they are addressing racism within and beyond their congregation. I was...

“Hello, who are you?” “I don’t know; I’ve never met me before!” This dialogue is from a comedy skit a friend and I wrote for an elementary school talent show. My comedy career never took off, but this dialogue resonates with me these days, as we collectively emerge from two years of...

At the beginning of 2020, we didn’t know what was coming. At the beginning of 2021, we had hope on the horizon. Now, at the beginning of 2022, our hope is tempered by a healthy respect for how quickly things can change, and some trust in our ability - and flexibility - to faithfully respond....

According to Movement Strategy Center (1), community transformation depends on: power analysis: understanding who has access to resources; who influences and participates in decision-making; and whose standards, stories and worldviews are valued; community organizing: working together across our...

Here I was thinking everything had already been said. That there were no other words to say (again) what we all already know: here we are, still in pandemic life. And yet, a shift has arrived and there are ideas being shared that can bring comfort, illumination, and insight. So, I wanted to share...

September is County Fair season in much of New England. In our UU congregations, September is also Ingathering time; water communion time; returning-to-church-time after far-flung summers laden with small jars of water from our travels and foot-long zucchinis from overflowing gardens....

A congregational board member called to ask what their church might do about their building. Like so many New England churches, theirs is old, labyrinthine, mostly inaccessible, and larger than they need now....

The following is based on content presented as part of the “Staying the Course” workshop at the New Day Rising Conference in February 2021. The full workshop is available to conference registrants through Whova and to new participants who enroll in the UULI course. To stay the course in our...

As we go about our work at this time, the NER staff team keeps learning about the faithful ways UU congregations are meeting the challenges of being and doing church during a pandemic.