Southern Region UUA

01/10/2026

14/08/2026

Southern Region UUs, there are just a few days left to register! ❤️‍🔥

DRUUMM's Beloved Gathering brings BIPOC Unitarian Universalists together for connection, restoration, learning, and building power—and this year's Strengthen programs offer some incredible opportunities to put our values into practice.

📅 General registration closes August 17. Check out the original post below for details and registration! ⬇️

14/08/2026

Southern Region UUs: this conversation feels especially close to home. ❤️‍🔥🌱

Across the South, our congregations and communities are already navigating the realities of a changing climate—from extreme heat and stronger storms to flooding, displacement, and the unequal burdens these crises place on our neighbors.

How might we meet those realities with love not only as a value, but as a strategy?

Join the Green Sanctuary community this Wednesday, August 19 at 7 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. CT for Love is the Framework for Climate Justice, a virtual gathering exploring practical tools for approaching love as an organizing strategy, ethic, and spiritual practice.

Whether your congregation is already deeply engaged in climate justice or wondering where to begin, you’re invited. 💚

There’s still time to register! Details and registration are in the original post below. ⬇️

Unitarian Universalists are people who love. Climate Justice is how we practice loving our world. ❤️‍🔥 [heart on fire]

We invite you to join us virtually on Wednesday, August 19 at 7pm ET for our first Green Sanctuary community meeting of the year, Love is the Framework for Climate Justice!

Elio Farley, our Side With Love Climate Justice Fellow, will kick off our fall Green Sanctuary community meetings by grounding us in Unitarian Universalist organizing frameworks. Together we will learn practical tools for approaching love as our strategy, ethic, and spiritual practice. In these times of fires and floods, we must courageously love.

Guided by UU values, the Green Sanctuary community nurtures resilient, thriving communities through climate actions that prioritize justice. All are invited to join our monthly community meetings to learn together, support each other, and celebrate progress.

Register here: https://secure.everyaction.com/Do5q9QNPFEmu9vhA13uOTw2

Image description: Light green event flyer with a dark green border and bold green brushstroke in the background. At the top is a large Green Sanctuary logo, a lit chalice with a leaf flame, and green text that says "Community Meeting." Dark blue text in a white box below reads, "Love is the Framework for Climate Justice." Below the text is a row of stickers representing the Four Essentials of climate justice: Mitigation (down arrow with caution sign and up arrow with heart), Community Resilience (two people holding a seedling), Justice (hand holding scales), and Congregational Transformation (flame with a heart at the center). Black text at the bottom reads, "Wednesday, August 19. 1 HT - 3 AKT - 4 PT - 5 MT - 6 CT - 7 ET."

10/07/2026

Healthy congregations grow through shared leadership.

One of the best gifts a board can give its congregation is taking time to build a shared understanding of its mission, priorities, and goals.

Join the Southern Region for an interactive training designed for congregational boards to attend together. We'll explore:
✨ Governance fundamentals
✨ Mission and strategic thinking
✨ Goal setting and board priorities
✨ Guided breakout sessions to help your board work together
✨ Practical tools to plan and facilitate your own board retreat

Whether you're welcoming new board members or preparing for the year ahead, this workshop will help your leadership team move forward with greater clarity, confidence, and connection.

We hope you'll join us!

12/06/2026

Looking for a way to celebrate Pride in your congregation?

The UUA's 2026 Pride worship service, “Interdependence,” is a complete worship service available for congregations to use. Grounded in the history of LGBTQ+ resilience, mutual care, and liberation, it invites participants to explore one of our shared values and reflect on the many ways our lives are connected.

You can access the worship materials at the link in comments.

We also thank Rev. Dr. Kimi Floyd Reisch for creating this resource!

12/06/2026

Pulse was more than a nightclub. It was a place of joy, belonging, community, and refuge. We honor those whose lives were taken 10 years ago on June 12, 2016, and we hold close the survivors, loved ones, and LGBTQIA+ communities forever changed by that night.

May their memory continue to call us toward a world where every person can live openly, safely, and fully as themselves.

21/05/2026

In the South, we know hospitality is more than politeness. At its best, it is a promise: you do not have to carry this world alone.

Right now, so many people are exhausted. Disconnected. Displaced from community. Made to feel disposable by systems that thrive when people are isolated from one another and too afraid to imagine something better together.

But our faith calls us toward something else.

Toward covenant.
Toward interdependence.
Toward the stubborn belief that people deserve dignity, care, and belonging simply because they are human.

That is part of what your support of the UUA helps sustain.

Not just programs. Not just events. But the spaces where people find each other again. Where relationships deepen. Where courage is practiced collectively. Where people remember they are not powerless when they are connected to community.

Because community is not extra right now. It may very well be what helps save us.

If you’ve been considering making a gift to the UUA, this is a powerful moment to do so. Through May 31, every gift will be triple matched up to $150,000.

The future we are hoping for will not be built by fear or scarcity.
It will be built by people who keep choosing one another.

You may ask: Why donate to the UUA? What difference does it actually make?

Sometimes, it looks like this:

Several years ago, a UU congregation in New York created a gathering called Building Beloved Community Beyond the Binary, a space rooted in care, connection, and belonging for transgender and intersex people.

As transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people increasingly face attacks and isolation, it became clear that this ministry could be life-changing far beyond one congregation or one region.

With support from the UUA, that single gathering continues to grow into a larger movement. Now, in partnership with local hosts across our Association, the UUA sponsors this gathering annually. The gathering brings together transgender people, allies, advocates, and accomplices, online and in person, to learn, connect, bear witness, and be witnessed in a space grounded in greater safety, dignity, and love.

Your generosity makes this work possible: helping congregations and communities remain resilient, connected, and rooted in belonging so more people can be fully seen, welcomed, and celebrated exactly as they are.

And right now, there is a time-sensitive opportunity to help sustain and expand this work. If you’ve been considering making a gift to the UUA, this is a powerful moment to do so.

✨ All gifts to the UUA will be TRIPLE MATCHED through May 31 — up to $150,000. ✨ You can make your contribution at the link in the comments.

Thank you for helping build a world grounded in love, courage, and community. 💛

19/05/2026

So much of the South’s moral history has been carried forward by Black faith leaders, organizers, and communities refusing to surrender hope or dignity. We’re grateful for all those who gathered in Selma this weekend to continue that witness.

Black clergy from across denominations returned to Selma this weekend as we are once again called to bear witness to the entrenched racism, fear, and violence in the United States.

Actions by the US Supreme Court and elsewhere in our government have laid bare once again the depths of anti-black sentiment that is so pervasive in this country. It was an honor to join in worship and witness with so many people of faith as we came together to say, "Never again."

Read more of the coverage in the The New York Times link below and follow Side With Love, linked below, for photos and livestreamed coverage of the weekend's events.

15/05/2026

Southern friends — we wanted to make sure you had this resource from Side With Love on your radar. 💛

There’s a lot here for congregations thinking about what it means to move from values to action in tangible, community-rooted ways. The stories and strategies shared during this gathering offer thoughtful examples of how faith communities can build relationships, respond to local needs, and prepare for the long haul work of justice.

Whether you’re part of a social justice team, congregational leadership, or simply someone asking “what can we do from here?”, we think this conversation is worth spending time with.

At the Gathering, I talked about how we need to shift from being independent minded cats to an organized school of fish in order to have the power we need to block authoritarianism and build the world we want. So many of you are doing this in your communities! Unitarian Universalists in Memphis (TN

15/05/2026

Alright Southern congregations, we need to know: what are your three words? 💛

Every UU community has its own flavor. Some are “music, justice, love.” Some are “friendly, inclusive, nerdy.” Some are held together by covenant, casseroles, and coffee hour conversations that somehow last two hours.

So — how would you describe your congregation in just three words?

Drop them in the comments. We want to see the beautiful range of who we are across the Southern Region.

What 3 words best describe your UU community?

Every UU community has its own personality. Some are deeply reflective, some delightfully quirky, some grounded in justice, music, coffee hour conversations—or all of the above.

Share your 3 words in the comments. We’d love to hear them. 💛