Media Contact:
Suzanne Morse
617-948-4650
Email: pr@uua.org

Charles Jefferson, Jr.
216-736-2131 
Email: jeffersonc@ucc.org

Boston, Mass. (May 6, 2025) – The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and the United Church of Christ (UCC) announced today that they signed an updated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) guiding their partnership to offer the Our Whole Lives (OWL) sexuality education series. Our Whole Lives is a comprehensive sexuality education curriculum that provides honest, accurate, and developmentally appropriate information across the lifespan.

The UUA and the UCC are celebrating the Our Whole Lives program’s anniversary, which includes 25 years of providing accurate, developmentally appropriate information to people across their lifespans. It is used in congregations as well as in other faith settings, schools, and community and health settings in the United States, Canada, the Philippines, and other countries. While developed by religious organizations, the curricula are secular and written for a general audience. When used in UU and UCC congregations, the secular content is provided within the context of our respective faith values. The Our Whole Lives curricula is an opt-in program that includes a parent orientation and permission process. The UUA acts as the publisher for the series on behalf of both organizations.

Over its 25 years, the UUA and the UCC have heard from many individuals who have benefited from the program, which dismantles stereotypes and assumptions, builds self-acceptance and self-esteem, fosters healthy relationships, improves decision making, and supports parents as their children’s primary sexuality educators. The curricula series offers age-appropriate ways to engage this material, guided by established public health and medical standards. Curricula must be led by trained facilitators to ensure consistent use of best practices. Offering the OWL program is essential for helping children, youth and adults receive accurate information, create safe communities, and set healthy boundaries.

“Our Whole Lives is an important expression of the shared values and principles that Unitarian Universalists are committed to,” said Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, the UUA’s President. “UUs believe that living authentically is central to one’s spiritual journey, and understanding sexuality is an important part of faith formation. Our Whole Lives provides the kind of honest and appropriate information on sexuality that allows people to make informed decisions and build healthy relationships. We proudly celebrate the positive impact of Our Whole Lives and also our 25-year publishing partnership with the UCC.”

“Comprehensive sexuality education is needed, especially in context of faith formation within congregations,” said Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, General Minister and the UCC’s President/Chief Executive Officer. “The collaboration between the UUA and UCC on Our Whole Lives has been meeting this need for 25 years. Our commitment to further collaboration via this MOU, ensures that members of our congregations who go through this training are equipped to make authentic choices for their bodies and for their lives.”

As part of the MOU, the UUA and the UCC have agreed to:

• Collaboratively develop all aspects of Our Whole Lives and accompanying faith-based curricula.
• Provide for the training of facilitators to lead OWL programs
• Share financial investment in co-owned curricula and related OWL resources.
• Provide guidance to congregations on the importance of implementing safe church practices.
• Engage in regular evaluation of all aspects of the Our Whole Lives programs.
• Hold in common the values and standards expressed in Our Whole Lives and jointly commit to effective practices in sexuality education.

“Throughout Our Whole Lives’ 25-year history, we have heard from many Unitarian Universalists and many other people who felt that their lives were enhanced or saved by the comprehensive sexuality education they received,” said Melanie Davis, the UUA’s Our Whole Lives Program Manager. “We are grateful to the program leaders and authors, facilitator trainers, facilitators, parents and participants who have been an integral part of the program’s enduring legacy.”

“At its core, Our Whole Lives is about empowering us in our humanity. Our Whole Lives serves to dismantle shame and stigma—which we know can be fatal—and construct life-giving, informed, consensual frameworks for relationships with ourselves and others,” said Rev. Amy Johnson, UCC Minister for Sexuality Education and Justice.

More information about Our Whole Lives can be found at the UUA’s and UCC’s websites.

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About the UUA:
The UUA is the central organization for the Unitarian Universalist (UU) religious movement in the United States. Our faith is diverse and inclusive and the UUA’s 1000+ member congregations are committed to shared values and principles that hold closely the worthiness and dignity of each person as sacred, the need for justice and compassion, the right of conscience, and respect for the interdependent nature of all existence.

About the UCC
The United Church of Christ, a mainline Protestant denomination, has 750,000 members and more than 4,700 congregations nationwide. Headquartered in Cleveland, it is a church of many firsts: the first mainline denomination to ordain a woman, the first to ordain an openly gay man, and the first predominantly white denomination to ordain an African American.