Congratulations to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, CO, which is recognized as a 2014 Breakthrough Congregation by the UUA! You can click the forward and back arrows on the image above to see more great pictures.
Today when you walk up the sunny pathway to the church on a Sunday morning, you’re met with radical hospitality, as two smiling congregants—one is from the rapidly growing young adult group—greet everyone before they reach the front door. Inside the sanctuary, built in the 1960s in a shape reminiscent of a Pueblo kiva, scores of new members and newly invigorated long-timers occupy nearly every seat.
The service is joyful and energetic and emphasizes the church’s new focus on social justice. On a Sunday in May, nine members of the church’s new Social Change Immigration Ministry described their recent BorderLinks trip to the Arizona-Mexico border. They placed items they’d found in the desert, such as empty water bottles, on a makeshift altar at the front of the church.
At coffee hour, children run about, people discuss the church-wide social change events, and a crowd of twentysomethings laugh as they plan their weekly pub meeting, Spirituality on Tap.
“You step back and you think, ‘Not long ago, this was like the apocalypse,’” said Jennifer Skiendzielewski, who will be board president next year. “There is an amazement that things have changed so dramatically.”
The congregation will be featured along with UU Ogden at General Assembly in 2015 in Portland, OR.
Featured image courtesy UU World, ©2014 Rebecca Stumpf. Used with permission.