Finding Our Way Home Retreat
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Finding Our Way Home 365 - Monthly Virtual Gathering
Why wait until the Spring to be with our people? Finding Our Way Home 365 is a community-led virtual gathering of BIPOC religious professionals that will allow us to stay connected year-round. We will meet monthly for spiritual nourishment, revival, and care ... as we prepare for our annual gathering.
FOWH 365 Dates & Times
- Wednesday, October 23rd @ 8pm ET / 7pm CT / 6pm MT / 5pm PT
- Wednesday, November 20th @ 8pm ET / 7pm CT / 6pm MT / 5pm PT
- Wednesday, December 18th @ 8pm ET / 7pm CT / 6pm MT / 5pm PT
Please use the following link to update your contact information and share with others who are interested in receiving registration information for the annual FOWH retreat and the FOWH 365 gathering:
2025 Finding Our Way HOME (FOWH) Registration - Asheville, N.C
Tuesday, March 18th - Friday, March 21st
REGISTRATION OPENS DECEMBER 1, 2024
Montreat Conference Center
Registration Fee: | $500 | *Fee includes housing, meals, and programming. |
Travel Fee: | $500 | *For air travel arranged through ProTravel regardless of travel distance. |
TOTAL COST: | $1000 | TOTAL COST |
Important Registration Details
Please read the following carefully because we want each of you to attend 2025 FOWH!
COVID-19 Guidelines:
- Vaccinations Required: Proof of full course of COVID-19 vaccinations for admittance to all UUA events, for all attendees ages 5 and over. Currently, the policy relates only to vaccinations, not boosters. So, we don’t have to worry about proof of boosters.
- Medical Exemptions: We require documentation from your physician indicating the medical reasons for the exemption. On the advice of your physician, an exemption may be granted when it does not cause undue hardship or pose a direct threat to the health and safety of others. Additionally, participants requiring exemptions must show proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours (about 3 days) before the event. Testing must be completed at a licensed medical center. Note that home tests are not acceptable. Testing will be at the participant's own cost and may be covered under health insurance.
- Masks Required: All attendees will be required to wear a well-fitted face mask at indoor events. While outdoors and unmasked, appropriate distance will be maintained.
- Onsite Rapid Testing: Free rapid test kits will be available on-site. Any attendees showing COVID-19 symptoms will be asked to take a rapid test. Rapid tests for respective attendees can also be requested for any reason.
Note that the $500 Travel Fee is for air travel arranged through ProTravel, regardless of travel distance. Select this option in the registration form if you wish to pay the $500 Travel Fee or need your travel covered by the UUA. You will be prompted to enter your personal information and travel information into the registration form, which will be used to book your travel to FOWH-Atlanta. You will receive a travel confirmation email within days after you have registered.
- If you are arranging your own housing and travel, feel free to opt out of paying our hotel and/or travel fees.
UUA Staff: Please use your respective UUA budget code to cover the registration fee and lodging expenses. You may contact ProTravel, or your travel site of choice to arrange travel. Fees for UUA Staff cannot be subsidized.
Questions
Please contact Rev. Michael Crumpler at multicultural@uua.org, if you have any questions.
About Finding Our Way Home
Finding Our Way Home is an annual retreat hosted by the UUA for Unitarian Universalist (UU) religious professionals of color. It offers community building, spiritual reflection, and collegial support while connecting participants with local community organizations as partners in service, witness, and advocacy.
This UUA-sponsored retreat welcomes UU religious professionals who identify as people of color, Black/African Diaspora, Native/Indigenous, Latina/o, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Middle Easterners, and others, and/or multiracial and multiethnic. Religious professionals include the following groups:
- Ministers in fellowship
- Ministerial candidates and seminarians
- Religious educators
- Musicians
- Administrators
- UUA Staff
Retreats have been held in Atlanta, GA (2023), Long Beach, CA (2022), Miami, FL (2019), Albuquerque, NM (2018), Baltimore, MD (2017), Philadelphia, PA (2016), Denver, CO (2015), Boston, MA (2014), Chicago, IL (2013), New Orleans, LA (2012), and Silver Spring, MD (2011).
Please use the following link to update your information and share with others who are interested in receiving information about the Finding Our Way Home retreats:
To learn more and to be added to the Finding Our Way Home community, contact multicultural@uua.org.
Testimonials
Finding Our Way Home participants have called the annual retreat "the single most effective UUA program dealing with multicultural ministries by religious professionals of color."
Finding Our Way Home has given me a place to explore what it means to be a multicultural leader within our denomination. I’ve experienced warmth and acceptance in a way that has helped me bring my full self to ministry, unafraid to claim the complexities of my social location. People embraced me from the get-go. I also value the opportunity to connect with religious professionals across different roles (ministers, religious educators, musicians, administrators); their expertise has enriched my work and my vision for what’s possible in Unitarian Universalism.
I wouldn’t be the minister I am today without the deep bonds that have formed through these gatherings. For a few days each year, I get to live in the Beloved Community, and I couldn’t be more grateful.
—Lindasusan Ulrich
Assistant Minister, First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor
The time for fellowship with Peers and Mentors of Color is an invaluable experience for my ministerial formation and my professional identity. The existence of Finding Our Way Home reinforces that as a lifelong UU, there will always be a place for me in our shared ministry. The event is a beautiful and spirit-renewing mosaic of the Beloved Community we’re journeying toward and making as peoples of faith.
—Gregory C. Carrow-Boyd, M.Ed
Interim Director of Religious Education, Guild of Interim Religious Educators, Aspirant for UU Ministry, UUA Trustee
Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church, Pasadena, CA
As a person of color in Unitarian Universalism, I often feel isolated, even in the most welcoming and loving spaces. Finding Our Way Home allowed space for identity growth I didn’t know how much I needed. Being my whole self in a community of shared experiences was enlightening. Through Finding Our Way Home, the network of UU’s of color continues to grow, thus strengthening our entire faith denomination.
—Kamila Jacob
Youth Ministries Coordinator, Unitarian Church of All Souls, NYC