Opportunities for Connection - November 2025

By Central East Region of the UUA

Featured Resource: UU Institute

Screen shot of UU Institute website with Leadership Course offerings

Congregational Life Online Leadership Courses. Transform yourself and your congregation to ensure that liberal religious values will have more impact in the world. Deepen your faith, connect with other UU leaders and grow your congregation.

Courses range from safety policies, stewardship, leadership development, board basics, to the membership journey, intercultural skills, creating covenants, youth advisor training and more. Every area of congregational life is represented. Courses range in cost from free to $30 per person. Registration for the site is free. Learn more!

Leadership Learning Opportunities

Leadership

The Congregational Life Staff are offering a number of opportunities for congregational leaders to develop skills and network.

Congregational Leaders Conversation
Congregational Life Online Leadership Courses. Transform yourself and your congregation to ensure that liberal religious values will have more impact in the world. Deepen your faith, connect with other UU leaders and grow your congregation. Courses range from safety policies, stewardship, leadership development, board basics, to the membership journey, intercultural skills, creating covenants, youth advisor training and more. Every area of congregational life is represented. Courses range in cost from free to $30 per person. Registration for the site is free. Learn more! Register for the Congregational Leaders Conversation

Lead with Love Conference
The Lead with Love conference is an in-person event as part of SR’s Leadership Experience. Save the date, February 7, 2026, in Greenville UU Fellowship, Greenville, SC. Registration will be open soon. Details at the UUA website.

Wave Cohorts

The image shows a clear glass prism in the shape of a triangular pyramid resting on a smooth, neutral-colored surface. A beam of white light enters the prism from one side. As it passes through the prism, the light disperses into a vivid spectrum of colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet—creating a rainbow effect that projects out the opposite side. The dispersion is sharp and vibrant, casting both light and color onto the surface around the prism.

Meet the Moment is a movement-wide framework helping Unitarian Universalists to collaboratively analyze, discern, and take values-based action in response to today’s religious, cultural, generational, and political realities.

Normalizing Change in Congregational/Communal Life Wave Cohort
Saturday, November 15, 2025, 2 pm ET, 4 hours with breaks. Making changes in congregational life can be challenging. Yet, as uncomfortable as change may be, it is one of the few constants in our lives and the life of our UU communities. It is, in fact, a necessary element of our Living Tradition. On Saturday, November 15th, we invite all UU congregational/communal leaders to join the Normalizing Change Cohort in exploring the nature of change. Cohort members will share their knowledge and experience during times of change in their UU communities. Change work is easier with partners. Come and meet some of your partners. Come and get some tips on leading for change. Come and share ideas with others. Come and have your cup filled a little so that the work of change can be exciting once more. The changes we choose that help us to amplify our deepest values are good for our congregations and good for the world. We hope you will join us in this rich discussion! Details on the event webpage.

Winter Institute 2026

Mountain stream in winter, snow upon ice.

Winter institute is back for 2026. Come join us for this relaxing weekend in UU community, February 13-16 at Salt Fork State Park in Cambridge, OH. The event page and registration will open in the first week of November. Early bird registration runs through January 15 and rooms must be booked directly with the Lodge by January 15 to be part of the block. Learn more on the web page.

Summer Institute 2026

The Summer Institute Planning Committee is pleased to announce that the 2026 Theme speaker will be Rev. Susan Ritchie, speaking on Co-Creating Hope: The Art and Beauty of Resilience. Join us at Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH, July 5-11, 2026. Like the theme? You can submit a t-shirt design for 2026. Learn more at the CERSI website.

Building Beloved Community Beyond the Binary

Illustrated hands representing the trans and nonbinary flag holding a chalice with the words Building Beloved Community Beyond the Binary.

Please sign up to learn more about being a satellite Congregation on Saturday, April 18, 2026, during the Building Beloved Community Beyond the Binary (BBCBB) event in Syracuse, New York. Satellite Congregations will create and hold space for transgender people in the community to come together and connect with one another. They will also create and hold space for allies who want to learn how to better support transgender people in their families and communities. In this session, Congregations will learn the how, when, where, and all the details of being a satellite congregation for the BBCBB.

Live info session: Monday November 24th 7:00 PM — 8:00PM ET. Please fill out this form if you are interested in hosting BBCBB this year and did not host last year. We will forward your information to your regional staff. They will reach out to you! Please register by Monday, November 17th. Learn more on the event page.

Where Do We Start? Exploring Sing Out Love (the UUA Virtual Hymnal)

A person with dark skin holds and strums an acoustic guitar that's resting on their knee. There's a small, red UUA chalice in the corner and the words SING OUT LOVE and UUA.org/virtual-hymnal

Designed for congregations without professional music staff, and led by Rev. Erika Hewitt and Sing Out Love composer Soren Austenfeld, this webinar will help worship leaders and choir members choose, learn, and teach some of the 60 new hymns in Sing Out Love.

Our hour-long program will begin with a brief tour of Sing Out Love, including a way to find new songs that are easy to learn. Soren and Rev. Erika will then provide tools & strategies to both learn new hymns and teach them in worship, using hand-picked examples from the hymnal. Our final ten minutes will focus on participants’ questions.

Please join us at either of these times:

  • Sunday, November 9 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern
  • Tuesday, November 11 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern

By signing up, you’ll receive a reminder and a Zoom link for both sessions. The Zoom link will be sent on Friday, November 7th and again on the mornings of Sunday, November 9th and Tuesday, November 11th. Learn more about Sing Out Love at the UUA website.

From the UU Mental Health Network

The Unitarian Universalist Mental Health Network is running a “Become a Companion” Workshop on Saturday, November 15 from 1:00 to 4:00pm ET. Companionship is a dynamic and inspirational model that empowers everyday individuals to support those experiencing emotional or mental distress. Through a three-hour interactive training, participants gain the essential knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to build authentic relationships with people in need. Registration is required for a $30 fee. Email questions to uumhn2021@gmail.com. For more information watch this short video (Vimeo).

EQUUAL Access Sermon Contest

The EqUUal Access Carolyn Cartland Sermon Award Contest is accepting sermons on disability-related themes and topics. The entry deadline is May 1, 2026. A cash prize of $500 will be awarded and presented as the online annual EqUUal Access celebration. For more information see the Sermon Contest Entry Information.

Side with Love Events

Black inkbrush heart with words "Side with Love"

The Gathering is a monthly virtual event from Side With Love, designed to offer:

  • Spiritual Grounding – Strengthen your heart and spirit for the work ahead.
  • Political Analysis – Understand the threats to democracy and justice.
  • Collective Action – Organize with others to block anti-democratic forces and build a just and loving world.

Upcoming topics for The Gathering:

Upcoming Gatherings

Side with Love News

Better Together Blog: Practicing Faithful Change (and gardening)

headshot of Lenore Bajare-Dukes

by Lenore Bajare-Dukes

For this week’s blog, we invite you to take in a story or two from CER’s Lenore Bajare-Dukes, which was originally shared as part of the Exploring New Models for Faith Development & Religious Education Wave Cohort (part of the UUA’s wider Meet the Moment process).

You can take this story in a lot of directions. Feel free to use it as a tool for your own spiritual reflection. Or as a leader, to think about what adaptations this moment in time is inviting from you.

Read the rest of the article and sign up for our weekly email!

News from the UUA

Faith Communities Today Survey Reminder, Survey Due November 14th
UUA congregations are being asked to participate in a national study of religious life in America. The Faith Communities Today (FACT) series, begun in 2000, provides critical information from 25+ different faith groups about the changing nature of congregational life. Congregational Administrators, Board Presidents and Ministers received a link to the survey on 10/1, followed by a reminder on 10/21. The survey is completely confidential and the combined results will be published early next year at www.faithcommunitiestoday.org. In the late Spring, the UUA will also host a learnings conversation for our communities. Thank you for helping be sure our congregational information is reported!

Don’t forget the Community Resilience Hub!
If your congregation is struggling with how to respond in this moment, please check out the UUA’s Resilience Hub. This is a location where we are gathering resources to help congregations build strong, connected, and resilient communities.

The Spark RE and Music Leadership Professional Development Programs provide Unitarian Universalist Religious Professionals learning communities within which they can easily access applicable skills and tools for religious leadership. Courses are also open to interested lay leaders. Check out the lists of classes, these are great resources!

The UUA has a Disaster Relief Fund for those who want to make a donation to help congregations who have faced losses due to tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires and more. Please donate if you can. Learn more about the work of the Disaster Relief Fund. We are Better Together.

New publications from the UUA - Available order is The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide, edited by Sofia Betancourt. Available for pre-order is Tend to Your Spirit: Mindful Living with Chronic Illness by Julianne Lepp and Florence Caplow.Check out the UUA bookstore for all Beacon Press and Skinner House books.

The UUA is hiring for several positions including our open CER Staff position. Find job descriptions and application information at their Job Openings webpage.

Calendar Items and News

For events, webinars and congregation news and events visit the following pages: