Whatever ministries you are part of — worship, music, faith formation, hospitality, social justice, governance, or anything else — the practices of Spiritual Leadership are a theologically faithful way to create Beloved Community within and beyond the congregation. So much pulls us away from...

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 call to adopt an 8th Principle is rippling through Unitarian Universalism. This Principle invites UU congregations to covenant to affirm and promote journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle...

As we have engaged UUs around New England in reflecting on living in covenant, we on regional staff have noticed an assumption so foundational that it is often revealed in storytelling but rarely said directly. That is: We can be either in covenant or in conflict, but not both at the same time....

We all come to Unitarian Universalism in our own way. For some of us, it’s a birthright—I have met a few folks who could trace their congregational roots all the way back over seven or eight generations! Some of us were brought in by friends...

I don’t doubt that many of us are maybe a little afraid to reflect so soon on something that is still quite close and tender. These fears may be part of the reason for Ken Burns’ five year standard! Yet, let us remember that company is one of the gifts of community, that we will have each other to..

Friends, if you are not already feeling so, please know this: you are going to get tired. Fatigue is real, especially when we are doing the work of dismantling white supremacy. If we don’t take the rest we need, the temptation to act out of white supremacy culture is that much stronger.

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...

We have to assume that if we are engaged in dismantling white supremacy, then we will have to encounter it along the way.

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.

Wisely, many faith leaders, writers, and activists have offered a more reflective third dimension between the tensions of before-times nostalgia and new world futures. They invite us to seek and reflect on insights and lessons wrought from a year of altered time.

Friends, move toward your purpose. Remember what is most essential. Let the rest go. We are here if you need help. 

Today, I sing praise for the gift of Black Lives. For precious, irreplaceable lives: Emmett, Trayvon, Eric, Tamir, Freddie, Treasure, Sandra, Breonna, George, Skylar, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and.... whose names I recall at all because Alicia, Opal and Patrisse and all the...

I imagine you, too, saw the unique holiday cards from the incomparable year just completed with messages like “Just say no to 2020,” “OH OH OH,” and “Merry Christmas from a distance.” Just some of the G-rated messages. We might as well laugh. Humor can be one of our more benign coping...

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.

“Whenever we try to envision a world without war, without violence, without prisons, without capitalism,” writes Walidah Imarisha, “we are engaging in speculative fiction. All organizing is science fiction. Organizers and activists dedicate their lives to creating and envisioning another...

It’s been a hard fall. We made it through a virtual summer after our very first all-virtual General Assembly last June  - and here we are already anticipating another all-virtual GA in June of 2021. The election season was both astonishing and surreal. As I write this, many of us are preparing for..

Faithful Risking, one of the five practices of Spiritual Leadership, stretches us beyond where we are comfortable in the name of Love and Justice.

Covenanting, one of the five practices of Spiritual Leadership, is at the heart of the practice of Unitarian Universalism.