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Sanctuary Boston worship services put music first.
The goal, said Matt Meyer, Sanctuary Boston’s director of operations and community life, is being “music-centered, heart-centered, embodied, and emotional.”
“We have a saying at Sanctuary,” said Meyer. “We’re gonna start with some singing, and we’re gonna end with singing, and mostly in the middle, what we’re gonna do is some singing.”
UUs who formed the “progressive spiritual community” were inspired by the worship styles of other traditions, such as those found in nondenominational and evangelical churches, according to Meyer. Every service has a band, that might include a four-piece ensemble of guitar, piano, trumpet, and hand drums jamming out hymns and pop music.
With its laidback, flexible, and trendy atmosphere, Sanctuary Boston is part of an emerging vanguard. UU leaders, religious professionals and laypeople alike, across the country are building innovative new communities, some that express UU faith quite differently from traditional Sunday morning worship services.
Its approaches have garnered attention from the Unitarian Universalist Association. Along with four other UU communities, Sanctuary Boston is part of a cohort of innovative ministries supported by the UUA’s New Communities Fund (NCF), which invests in transformative UU groups through its New Communities Partnership Program.
The NCF, led by recently appointed co-directors Rev. Aisha Ansano and Rev. JeKaren Bell, aims to help shepherd vibrant, vital innovation in Unitarian Universalism. Prototype ministries like Sanctuary Boston are daring to reimagine what the next generation of UU communities could be.
Sanctuary Boston has no brick-and-mortar church of its own, so it hosts Wednesday evenings a few times a month at First Church Boston or First Parish in Cambridge. There’s a livestream for those who want to attend online.
The average Sanctuary Boston service offers fewer words from the pulpit; they skip sermons, instead including reflections from community members, usually around ten to twelve minutes long. The congregation has no minister or sole executive.
“A good sermon about beloved community doesn’t always leave someone feeling like they experienced beloved community,” said Meyer. “I think there is embodied experience of being in beloved community, of true belonging, that people are hungry for, and I think that’s particularly true for young people.”
Vera Witte, a student at Brandeis University, taking part in a Sanctuary Boston worship service.
Sanctuary Boston is also distinct for its focus on the experience of youth and young adults, such as the many college and university students in the greater Boston area.
“We’ve come to describe ourselves as a multi-generational community that centers the experience and leadership of young adults,” said Meyer.
In a denomination where many are concerned about declining youth engagement, Sanctuary Boston shines due to its active program of campus ministry and outreach to young people.
Funding the Future of Unitarian Universalism
For Ansano and Bell, NCF’s mission of guiding and supporting innovative UU ministries is intensely personal.
“We have been doing entrepreneurial, innovative ministry for our entire ministerial careers,” said Ansano, who is co-minister of Nourish, a consultancy that helps UU develop “dinner church” programs. Bell founded The After Practice, helping religious professionals to navigate conflict, transition, and other challenges.
“I help people figure out the hard stuff,” she said, smiling. Bell’s portfolio also includes “a more fun project,” Love in Layers, that sends birthday cake kits and cards as a “ministry of celebration.”
After years of creating new forms of ministry, Ansano and Bell say they are eager to help fellow UUs make their own visions a reality.
“Spirituality doesn’t exist only on Sunday, or only when you’re doing a social justice action,” said Bell.
“I think Sunday morning is great,” added Ansano. “I love going to church. And church is not always what people are looking for.”
The New Communities Partnership Program, created to support ministries outside of the traditional parish setting, received a major grant from the Fetzer Institute in 2025, allowing the UUA to help resource communities like Sanctuary Boston. Bell said these types of communities give her hope for the future of the faith.
“I’m a lifelong UU,” said Bell, “and the message I’ve heard over and over is that Unitarian Universalism is dying, that we’re not going to last another decade… . But that is just not our reality. And the reason it’s not our reality is because we’ve done so much work to make sure that spiritual innovation is prioritized.
“We are giving people opportunities to expand the definition of Unitarian Universalism.”
‘I want to create a community I didn’t have’
Sanctuary Boston is not alone in creatively building spaces for UUs. The New Communities Partnership Program provided grants to four other groups, forming a cohort of mutual support in the uncharted waters of innovative ministry. Those groups include ministries across the country, all distinct in form and focus.
Take the San Francisco Contemplarium, founded by UU minister Rev. Seanan Fong, which offers public events such as “Reflection Jams,” inviting community members to gather for guided journaling and peaceful music.
Or the BeLoved Center, a new offering from the UU Church of the Palm Beaches, which offers programming on health and wellness. Ansano said the BeLoved Center also plans to offer free therapy and mental health resources to its community.
The Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry, another group supported by the New Communities Partnership Program, is a state action network of Unitarian Universalists advocating for UU Values in public policy. Partnering with UU the Vote, the Poor People’s Campaign, the Austin Sanctuary Network and more, TXUUJM is a force for social justice throughout the state.
Rev. Erin Walter (in stole with black chalice on yellow background), Minister and Executive Director of the Texas UU Justice Ministry, protesting outside of an ICE office in San Antonio.
Lighthouse Spokane, the final member of the cohort, is an innovative partnership between the Inland Northwest Unitarian Universalist Community and the Clear Sky Center, a retreat center in British Columbia. In collaboration, these two groups will launch a study group exploring “metamodernism,” a pluralistic spiritual worldview “grounded in Buddhist and cross-traditional wisdom,” according to a report from FāVS News.
The ministries sponsored by the NCF take different forms, but they share a desire to push the boundaries of what UU spiritual community can look like.
As for Sanctuary Boston, now beyond its infancy and into adolescence, the challenge ahead lies in sustaining and growing the innovative model that’s been built.
To that end, the grant from the NCF has allowed Sanctuary Boston to bring on a new staff member: Ciyadh Wells, who is working to expand their fundraising and campus ministry. Wells, who was already a member of the community before starting her new role in March, said she is drawn to this work partly because she would have liked to encounter UU campus ministry in her time as a student.
“Where I went to college there were many other ministry groups, evangelical groups doing their tabling on campus, but I never saw a UU table,” said Wells. “Had I seen that table, I probably would have been just as curious then as I have been over the last several years of being engaged in UUism. I want to create a community I didn’t have.”
That drive to create something new—to invest time, treasure, and passion into UU communities bringing our faith to life in new ways—animates the New Communities Partnership Program as a whole.
In addition to financial support, Wells said that a sense of community between innovative ministry groups is invaluable for them. Grantees meet online once a month, said Wells, “to be a network of support for people who are doing new, awesome, challenging things.”
Those new things, from campus ministry to weeknight services to a hundred new ideas still brewing in the minds of creative UUs, could prove essential to building a thriving future.