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An exciting new project is reinvigorating conversations and commitments to climate justice throughout Unitarian Universalist congregations across the country.
The “Climate Justice Revival: Reimagine Together from an Extractive Age to a New Era,” which launched on September 28 and 29, 2024, is an initiative born out of nearly two years of planning. It was created to promote more collaboration between congregational teams, break down silos, and highlight the intersectionality of climate with other justice efforts.
More than 375 congregations are hosting Climate Justice Revivals; many Revivals took place in September, while others were planned for later in the year or in 2025.
“We wanted to spark a shift from what I would call transactional and extractive relationships in our organizing that really lead to burnout, to cultures of organizing that are more nourishing, more relational, and more joy-filled,” said Rachel Myslivy, Climate Justice strategist for the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Side With Love Organizing Strategy Team.
Myslivy and Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd, director of Communications and Public Ministry at the UUA, formed a team that brainstormed, created, and dispersed the resources to bring the Revival to fruition.
From the beginning, it was important to prioritize building relationships and trust.
“Moving at the speed of trust is a commitment,” Ladd said. “That’s why it took two years instead of six months.”
UUs gather at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango, Colorado. Congregations that participated in the UU Climate Justice Revival had access to materials that allowed them to personalize activities and include people of all ages.
Congregations received toolkits to host a Revival, including prompts for adult dialogues, educational materials for all ages, worship resources, and advocacy activities, as well as training for facilitators. Many chose to hold their events the last weekend in September, but congregations were free to choose other convenient times at later dates.
What originally could have been solely a widespread “sit and get event” where people simply tuned into a video presentation but did little more, instead became an easier to disperse, flexible model with a variety of options and room for congregations to be creative. This approach added a renewed energy to organizers trying to roll out the initiative, Ladd and Myslivy said.
The new approach led to more inclusive and engaging events, with congregations adapting the Revival to their needs using materials that supported virtual, in-person, and multiplatform experiences. There were also activities for all ages.
“Every time somebody said, ‘We can’t do it because …,” we went back and said, ‘How could we make it work for that congregation to be able to do it?’” Myslivy said.
The dialogues used systems thinking activities to prompt conversations about local challenges and opportunities and how individuals fit into congregational and community organizing. The Revival organized around five learning objectives: imagining a thriving future, making connections, building capacity, nourishing relationships, and charting a course.
“We need movements that people might want to join because people’s interests across a wide variety of justice issues are represented within that movement,” Ladd said.
UUs Engage with Climate Revival in Different Ways
The Unitarian Universalist Church of Cortland, New York, was among the more than 375 congregations to host a Climate Justice Revival.
At the UU Congregation of Saratoga Springs, New York, about fifty people gathered on September 29 for a Sunday worship service that was part of the Revival.
“We are joining over 350 UU congregations all over the country for a time of renewal and recommitment at the intersection of the climate crisis and the justice commitments of our congregation,” Lucy Manning, chair of the Social Justice Team, told the congregation. She asked them to keep in mind the people in the Southeast United States affected by Hurricane Helene, noting that “those impacted most are historically people that are underserved by their communities.”
During the service, Manning read the sermon “Here,” written by Edward Lynn, a thirty-year member of First UU Congregation of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Climate Revival organizers offered congregations six sermon options, including Lynn’s, from among those submitted in a sermon-writing contest for the event.
Among other things in the sermon, Lynn highlighted that there will be millions of climate refugees within the United States in the years to come—moving from the Southern states when they become too hot or difficult to live in, for example—and that UU congregations in relatively safer locations should be welcoming to them. Wrote Lynn, “our presence here as a strong, clear voice for progressive liberal religion will be essential.”
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To its usual ritual of stones and water, the Saratoga Springs congregation added a new ritual for action, with congregants being blessed for the work of climate justice. Ron and Linda Giancola, a married couple who are on the Social Justice Team, led prayers for the great web of life, the land, all species, and the natural world, and for local frontline communities, “who are impacted first, worst, and longest by climate change and who face systemic oppression,” Ron said. To each prayer, the congregation responded, “Let us reimagine a new era together.”
The congregation will hold the second part of the Revival during an interactive worship service in the spring, which will also include youth, said Manning.
“I feel like a frog in a pan on the stove that is gradually heating up,” Ron Giancola said after the service. He and Linda moved from their longtime home in Western Massachusetts after their town’s decision to locate a dangerous PCB dump site there. They considered relocating to San Diego to be near family, but “couldn’t do it,” he said, because it is too hot for his health. “Climate change touched us very personally on that level.”
The Potomac Partnership—which includes the UU Congregation of Fairfax, Virginia; River Road UU Congregation in Bethesda, Maryland; and Cedar Lane UU Congregation in South Kensington, Maryland—put on a collaborative event in September, as well.
Since congregations could add other aspects of the event to some of the guided materials, one of Saturday’s activities at River Road encouraged people to write their commitment to climate justice on a leaf and attach it to a tree drawn by Fairfax congregant Willow Bodman. There was also a panel with Interfaith Power and Light, a national organization that partners with faith groups to address climate change; CASA, an immigrant rights and racial and economic justice powerhouse; and Action in Montgomery (AIM), a community organization rooted in the neighborhoods and congregations in Montgomery County, Maryland. The panelists discussed the intersections between climate change and other forms of social justice.
“We are not single-issue people,” said Andrew Batcher, social justice coordinator for the Potomac Partnership. “There’s no such thing. There can’t be.”
Batcher also ran the Sunday service and delivered his sermon, “A Future Where We Can Thrive,” which was among those selected as a winner in the Revival’s contest.
“My sermon was about how Unitarian Universalists can achieve our potential to make a positive difference, not by becoming experts on specific issues like climate change, but by creating a space of support, connection, and spiritual nourishment for the thriving future we believe in,” Batcher said.
Rev. David Miller, senior minister of the UU Congregation of Fairfax, said he was intrigued and grateful to hear how some of the work of organizations on the panel involves helping marginalized communities disproportionately affected by climate change.
An EPA report found that “racial and ethnic minority communities are particularly vulnerable to the greatest impacts of climate change.” African Americans are more likely to currently live in areas with the highest projected increases in childhood asthma diagnoses, according to the report. Hispanic and Latino people are also more likely to live in areas with the highest projected reductions in labor hours due to extreme temperatures.
Miller believes it is important for progressive faith communities to have a voice in the issue that extends beyond the various Revival events.
“The underlying foundation of our values calls us to heal ourselves, each other, and the world,” he said.
Additional reporting by Elaine McArdle.