I joined the UU Fellowship for so many reasons. The surrounding beauty of our grounds and the memorial garden are sacred spaces I visit often. The sense of community and the devotion to social justice among family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues provide a spiritual home base that is so inspiring. Being part of a Soul Matters small group where we practice the art of deep listening has strengthened my sense of well-being and belonging to a wider community of compassionate connection. The Sunday services are always full of surprises, with music and messages that delight and challenge.

If I were to move to the east coast – especially to a small southern town – there had to be a UU presence. What I’ve found at UUC is more than I had imagined: a thriving, forward-thinking congregation supportive of its own and welcoming of newcomers. I am grateful to be here.

The UUC is a place to gather together in our shared values and principles. With a wide range of opportunities, the UUC offers educational and spiritual growth as well as service activities within the UUC community and the NRV at large.

I’m deeply grateful for the ministry of the UUCNRV. The depth and variety of spiritual, service, and social opportunities in this fellowship have enriched my life and supported me through challenges. I feel so fortunate to have this community as my spiritual home.

While some churches are still struggling with dogma versus inclusion issues, our tradition of openness creates diversity and enables us to address real societal issues.

Our UUC congregation is my home – my spiritual home, my community home, and my heart’s home. It is the base and the basis for my living, and I am alive in its light.

Having been fiercely independent most of my life, I am thankful to have been drawn into THE INTERDEPENDENT WEB OF LIFE through my UUCNRV membership.

Simply put, UCC is my spiritual community. Here, I am both supported and valued. UCC has been an incredibly welcoming and affirming place where I can be authentic and inspires my continued growth. I’m thrilled to be a member of the UCC community. I continually see this incredible community live its mission as we come together to work, grow, play, and laugh!

I’ve found UUC, to be a ‘Beloved Community’ –a ‘Safe Harbor’– where my spirit is replenished and grown. Then I went to UU General Assembly and thrilled to discover the great ‘Sea’ of which our ‘Safe Harbor’ is a part!

Love lives here, Love reaches out.

AT UUC –and at GA—I have met people living their values and I’m inspired to emulate them!

As someone once said, ‘You can fake that you care, but you can’t fake showing up.’
UU’s show up!

What is UUC about? Kindness, kindness!

Being part of UUC and attending weekly worship has filled my soul! Exploring what it means to live our lives in a spiritual community that is both challenging and affirming is the essential environment to explore the spirit well. Whether it is singing a favorite hymn together, holding silence as a congregation, or reflecting on the words of the sermon, worship – and UUC – makes me think more deeply and feel more richly.

Raising open minded and spiritually aware children can be an overwhelming task. I am so grateful to the UUC for offering such varied rich content in a variety of formats. This content, plus all the efforts between RE, MSYG, YRUU, OWL and Parents’ Covenant Group, to build the youth community provides them with a supportive cohort, encouraging attendance, learning and civic engagement.

I love that the presence of a UU church in a community is a way many validate the viability of a new home when relocating. Our UUC is no different, attracting so many fascinating, wonderful people who stretch our own perspectives and make a difference in the lives of others. For someone with no extended family in the area, many UUC members have over the years become like family, and enriched my life immensely. I am so grateful for this deep, caring community.

The seventeenth-century Puritan Roger Williams described himself as a Seeker: one who’s doomed to keep looking for the true religion but knows he’ll never find it. I’m with Williams, and in the meantime the best thing I can discover is the UUCNRV, which is pretty good.

At UUC we meet new people and see old friends. It’s comfortable, even as a challenges us to grow. We love UUC and feel loved in return.

UUC is my Wakanda—a protected, enlightened space where morality and right relationships can be nourished. UUC forever!

For me, the best part of being a member of the UUC is the religious education provided to my children. I believe in exposing my children to all religions and spiritual beliefs so they may choose their own paths. Thanks to the UUC, I feel comfortable with what my children are being exposed to and know they will be able to make informed and inclusive decisions in the future in all aspects of their lives.

I agree that the most appealing aspect to me is the exposure to several different beliefs for children AND adults. Being educated about other’s beliefs leads to acceptance and also helps better shape one’s own beliefs. Additionally I appreciate the opportunity to self reflect and improve myself as well as my beliefs.

Congregants at UUC embrace me, literally and figuratively. I love working and playing with such interesting, smart, engaged, and fun-loving people!

My connection to the UUC started from both a desire to find a spiritual home for myself as well as thinking ahead to a place I’d feel comfortable bringing my future children to. Hence I became most involved in the RE and Youth programs at UUC. I have felt blessed to have a safe space to let my children and myself explore what we think about the spiritual and other aspects of our lives and our connections to the larger community.

I feel grateful that the UUC provided a wonderful refuge for my family, especially when my children were young, and take pride in claiming the UUC as my spiritual home.

I continue to be a UU because I feel a connection to the people I have met at the UUC and the ideas and actions that flow through our congregation.

UUC is the place where our actions really do live up to our words of charity and justice.

It’s a kind, nonjudgmental place that really lives up to its credo.

The seven principles are important for me, and what I like best about our congregation the love and sense of community that I feel as part of the congregation.

The UUC is my extended family. It comforts me, challenges me, and connects me to my better self and to the greater good.

I find inspiration somewhere among the sermons, readings and music to a space that allows me to see a world beyond my daily world – outside myself.

I appreciate having a community of people whose attitudes are similar to mine.


It is also an accepting group of folks who are open minded and can change attitudes when new evidence emerges.

We feel most fortunate to be members of this wonderful, diverse family of folks who are dedicated to our mutual ideals and devoted to one another.

Before I found UUC, my experience of adult life was often lonely. Now I feel rooted and purposeful. Honestly, I love the routine of church. But my favorite part of being a member of this congregation is that I have found people who genuinely care for me, for whom I can care, and with whom I can strive to serve and improve the world.

When I started attending UUC regularly 2 1/2 years ago, I had no idea how much my life would morph by being a part of this congregation: I found community, rediscovered my love of singing, and even got married here last fall. It makes the NRV my home, and my stewardship helps to sustain this community for years to come.

At one service we were asked to notice the people who had been with us during important moments in our lives. As a new member, I just sought out the face of my daughter, but then I also saw the realtor who helped my family find our first home, the midwife who welcomed me at the hospital when my daughter was born, and the gardener who, by entrusting me with her plants, let me know that I was part of her community. Members of the UUC had been welcoming me home for years before I even entered the doorway of the sanctuary. So glad I crossed that threshold. So glad to be home.

With work and a baby keeping us busy, it’s great to have the UUC community for support and connection. We’re also grateful to have a place for Milo to have a religious education that will allow him to develop his own beliefs without judgement.

The UUC is a unique community: like-minded in its support of diversity, the pursuit of life-long learning, and the sacred communion of coffee. It has provided me with boundless opportunities to live my values, nurture our youth, and develop meaningful relationships over the past twenty years.

My choice of the Unitarian denomination was easy once I made the initial choice of being born into a Unitarian family! But staying is a continual choice that everyone makes. I choose the Unitarian path because I like being in a community of like-minded people. Not like-minded in agreeing on everything, but like-minded in agreeing that difference of opinion should not only be tolerated, but is vital to a healthy and evolving world view.

We love the Unitarian faith because it is so welcoming, and it recognizes that other religions are just different paths to the same end – to help us negotiate in the world.

Our UU Congregation provides an oasis of both hope and solace in troubled times.

My service to the UUC is one of the great joys in my life. Here I feel connected, needed, and enjoy my responsibility of making everyone’s time here more comfortable.

The UUC is a harbor where we give shape to our lives through self-reflection and sharing ideas with others, and from which our best intentions can flow through actions into the communities around us.

It’s a place where we can celebrate life together in song!

I love that RE gently encourages my kids to move out of their comfort zones, in terms of social interactions and with people of all ages. I also love that there’s a community that cares about me and my family.

I love how everyone gets along, even when we have different ideas. (6 year old)

I have friends to play with! (3 year old)

I came in as hopeful skeptic searching for a spiritual home I was convinced didn’t exist. A place where I might fit in and where my beliefs and questions wouldn’t label me as an outsider. I found that spiritual home and much more besides. My family gained a community, my children gained a variety of perspectives. We have gained another family…one that pushes us to live better, love bigger, and to be the good we’d like to see in the world. My only regret is that we didn’t find UUC sooner.

While the UUC of the NRV collectively represents a group of diverse thinkers who hold various beliefs, it is a community that holds loving kindness at its core. It is wholly accepting, open and welcoming. Amen and blessed be!

It’s important to me that UUC provides a caring community where my children can see faith and service in action.

UUC is a welcoming, supportive community which exemplifies the concepts of Unitarian Universalism. I hope that the congregation is a beacon in this area and provides a sanctuary for those in need– all of us.

Being around warm and like-minded people.

UUC is our family’s home for contemplation and growth in a religious community whose faith is rooted in service and a belief in the power of the human spirit.

As for words for UUC, for me I think of SUPPORT, FRIENDSHIPS, OPPORTUNITIES (both for me and giving to the community) and EDUCATION!

Why I like to take part in our annual pledge drive…. In a nutshell, or short version: It’s a fact…well perhaps two facts: – 1. Our way of faith truly enhances my sense of awe about being a human alive for a while on this particular wondrous (corner?) of the universe; and, 2. this Congregation, in particular, has never failed to offer me ideas and playmates – as spurs for my personal growth and benevolent leanings. Strangely, over the years (63) at my various UU congregations, I have always appreciated budget time,.., even during those years when I was a financially strapped single mother…. I suppose it’s because it reminds me in its special, concrete way, to put a value, yet again, on my faith…(not a bad exercise in appreciation)

Standing here together,
no one is alone.
Looking for a shelter,
we’ve found a home.

All this light drives darkness away,
from living there all alone.