Imagining the Future of Unitarian Universalism Together

Meet the Moment is a framework for collective conversation, discernment, and strategizing about how our faith can be its most impactful in the context of new realities for Unitarian Universalism, religious life in North America, and the geopolitical landscape. Meet the Moment is rooted in praxis — cycles of learning, reflection, and action — and designed to be used across Unitarian Universalism to grow our shared analysis, identify urgent needs and important opportunities, and ground in our values to prioritize work and develop shared strategies for navigating the current times.

From shared data and storytelling to small groups for reflection and experimentation to facilitation templates designed for congregations and their leaders, the Meet the Moment framework is a resource and a container for all Unitarian Universalists to create the future of our faith together. By engaging shared tools and asking similar questions across the faith, Meet the Moment is designed to:

• Bring UUs into relationship across congregations, regions, and nationally;
• Build relationships between folks who are holding similar work and facing similar issues in different contexts;
• Strengthen our shared analysis about what’s happening both within UUism and in the world;
• Create containers for UUs to innovate creative solutions and share learning and wisdom on a large scale to avoid reinventing the wheel;
• Support cycles of experimentation and evaluation in which we try new things, see what’s working, and use our learning to refine and recalibrate our practices as we go

History

Meet the Moment’s current iteration began as a pilot largely among UUA staff in Fall 2024 with a focus on building shared understanding through data analysis and narrative work, and continued in the spring of 2025 with the [first round of Wave Cohorts], which were led by UUA staff and brought together leading thinkers and innovators from across the faith to dig deeply into a range of pressing issues facing UUism. These Wave Cohorts shared their learning as part of the anchor programming of General Assembly in Baltimore, marking the launch of the Meet the Moment framework for the faith.

An Iterative Process

The first phase of Meet the Moment focuses on growing shared analysis and leaning into our values to answer the question, “What are UUs called to do in response to this moment?” — as a faith, as congregations, as faithful Unitarian Universalists living our faith within and beyond our walls. Whether it’s the worship committee of a small lay-led fellowship, the Board of a UU State Action network or congregation, or the UUA’s Executive Team, the framework invites groups to approach issues beginning with three grounding questions that help build shared analysis, surface urgent needs and important opportunities, and support values-based prioritization and discernment. Most of the Fall 2025 Wave Cohorts, as well as the Meet the Moment congregational facilitation templates, are focused on building this kind of shared understanding and discernment.

As the framework moves deeper, Wave Cohorts can also serve as learning and practice communities for groups of people who already share an analysis and know what they want to do together. Future Wave Cohorts will take the learnings from the discernment phase and provide concrete supports for strategy planning (“How are we going to do it?”),supported reflective experimentation (“How’s it going and what are we learning?”), and leading to rigorous evaluation, assessment, and responsive re-calibration (“What worked and what would we do differently?”).

We will continue to develop resources and opportunities for engagement as we get deeper into this collective work as a faith, including repeating cycles of cohorts, national and congregational opportunities for shared learning and analysis, and reflection and assessment phases designed to align our work and support long-term transformation across Unitarian Universalism.

In order for Unitarian Universalists to faithfully determine what we need to be doing to meet this moment, we need to begin by building shared understanding and analysis of what the context and needs actually are.

To align and amplify our energy across the UU ecosystem, we are creating containers that bring the right people into conversation and practice about the right topics in the right way at the right time. Wave Cohorts are a central practice of Meet the Moment. They are simply groups of people who are working on the same “issue” to develop a shared analysis and understanding that, in turn, leads to taking strategic action together.

Asking the Right Questions

In the early phases of Meet the Moment work, a major goal is building collective understanding of and analysis about the context and realities we are navigating and how we are called in our values to respond to that landscape. Wave Cohorts invite participants to dive into an issue or topic by focusing together on three Grounding Questions that support growing shared understanding, identifying needs and opportunities, and engaging in values-based discernment about what our UU values call us to do in response to this moment.

The questions come in sequence, and can be tailored for use by any group/team/body in relation to the context they are in and the work they are charged to do. The questions are:

• What is the moment we are in? (Characteristics, realities, and trends that are shaping the world around us)
• What are the most urgent needs and important opportunities of this moment? (Opportunities, challenges, and barriers that are created by the moment we’re in)
• What do our shared values call us to do in response to this moment? (Defining our lane and our charge—what are we most compelled, equipped, and/or positioned to do?)

Going Deeper

As the framework moves deeper, Wave Cohorts can also serve as learning and practice communities for groups of people who already share an analysis about the landscape, the needs, and the role we might play. The focus of these Wave Cohorts is on gathering practitioners to develop concrete strategies and plans and/or take specific action together. This format is appropriate for people who have already participated in a previous Wave Cohort on the topic, and/or who already share an analysis about the needs and opportunities of the moment and are ready to “try a thing” together and reflect on how it goes.

The Meet the Moment framework continues iteratively, with repeating cycles of Wave Cohorts, national and congregational opportunities for shared learning and analysis, and reflection and assessment phases designed to align our work, take collective action, and support long-term transformation across Unitarian Universalism.