Unitarian Universalist Church in Reston

“Wear gratitude like a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your life.”

- Rumi (Sufi Mystic, Poet, Teacher, Theologian, & Founder of the Mevlevi Order) 1207 - 1273.

Join us this Sunday for our weekly service. It only takes a moment to be grateful. We can be grateful for the larger things, a new house, a dream job and we can also be grateful for the small things, a warm bed, food, clothing. As they say “Gratitude is an Attitude.”

“Each life, however humble, has its ministry. Each heart, however broken, has its message of strength.”

- Caroline A. Soule (Universalist Minister, Novelist, Poet, & Editor) 1824 - 1903.

🎃 Join us this Sunday for a fun, intergenerational Halloween service! We’ll explore the many ways we and our neighbors show up in the world—costumes encouraged! 👻

🍬 Bring a food item (or more!) for our Trick-or-Treat collection supporting Cornerstones’ Thanksgiving Food Drive.

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

- Anne Lamott (Novelist, Essayist, Public Speaker, Political Activist, & Teacher) 1954 - Present.

Join us this Sunday at 10am for our weekly service as guest minister, Cara Fortner, invites us to be in conversation with our genuine selves, in partnership with Wisdom and Grace, while we take measure of the realities of the moment.

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

- His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Monk, Spiritual Leader, 1989 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, & Teacher) 1935 - Present.

Join us for our service on Sunday. Rev. Aileen will discuss the practice of compassion.

Compassion means literally “to suffer with.” What does that mean to us in our everyday lives? In times when cruelty seems to be the dominant response to multiple crises, what does it mean to practice compassion?

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Baptist Minister, Civil Right's Activist, Political Philosopher, & Writer) 1939 - 1968.

Join us this Sunday at 10am for our weekly service.

A church community is a place of belonging. And belonging takes not just showing up but contributing to the community in ways that are life giving. Each of us has a place in the life of this community.

This Sunday: Guest minister Rev. Kenneth Nixon Jr. explores the ‘inconvenience of grace’—how our discomfort with proximity tests hospitality, and how embracing it can transform our neighborhoods and our souls.

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.”

- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Unitarian, Suffragist, Abolitionist, Poet, Teacher, & Writer) 1825 - 1911.

"There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it's not really there."

- Bill McKibben (Environmental Activist, Author, Scholar, & Organizer) 1960 - present.

Building connections one block at a time! 🙌 Our new church board came together in late August for some Jenga fun during their orientation. Nothing like a little friendly competition to help new leaders get to know each other!

Join us this Sunday at 10am as Rev. Aileen explores what it means to belong to our Earth.

We are interconnected with everything around us. We forget that we belong to the Earth rather than the earth belonging to us.

✨ In Spite of It All ✨
Join women’s vocal ensemble bēheld for an afternoon of song, storytelling & community. Fierce, free voices lifting joy, beauty & wonder amid grief and longing.

📅 September 27th at 4pm
📍 UU Reston
🔗 uureston.breezechms.com/form/beheld

Join us for worship this Sunday at 10am as Rev. Aileen explores what it means to belong. What constitutes belonging? What is the difference between healthy solitude and loneliness? We are living in a culture that promotes loneliness even as we are more virtually connected than ever.

“Democracy is not a gift which comes from the top down. It is the precious possession of those who fight for it and keep it alive.”

- Emily Taft Douglas (Unitarian Universalist, Congressperson, Author, & Activist) 1899 - 1994.

YouTube video by Unitarian Universalist Association Happy 200th Anniversary to British and American Unitarians!

Little known fact - the @uua.org & @ukunitarian.bsky.social were founded on the same day 200 years ago - May 25, 1825.

“Let us remember that the smallest seeds of our investment, our care, our embodied faith in the face of a world on fire can in fact bring forth the miraculous.”

- Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt (President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Seminary Professor, Theologian, & Ethnobotanist).

This Sunday, join UU Reston for our Juneteenth Service. Rev. Aileen will explain the history & importance of Juneteenth.

📸Photo Credit: "Juneteenth,” From the Seattle Municipal Archives, Used under Creative Commons License 2.0 Generic Deed, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ju..., Cropped.

"Support the strong, give courage to the timid, remind the indifferent, and warn the opposed."

- Whitney Young (Unitarian Universalist, Civil Rights Leader, Delegate to the United Nations, Social Worker, & Executive Director of National Urban League) 1921 - 1971.

Join us this Sunday at 10am as our Music Director Cynthia Young leads in our annual Music Sunday service. Throughout history, music has called us to action and connected us in love. Music Sunday will rejuvenate our sense of purpose -preparing us to be the change we want to see.

“The spirit of a people, its cultural level, its social structure, lies in its music.”

- Béla Bartók (Unitarian, Composer, Pianist, Educator, Scholar, & Ethnomusicologist) 1881 - 1945.

Graphic with a cream background and rainbow borders at the top left and bottom right corners. At the top, the word "Pride" is written in a large, playful script font filled with the colors of the Progress Pride flag (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, light blue, brown, and black). Around the word are colorful stars and sparkles. Below it, in black and red text: “Pride is FIERCE. Pride is FOREVER.” At the bottom, in large bold blue text: “You Belong. Always.” To the lower left is the Unitarian Universalist Association chalice symbol in Progress Pride flag colors. In the bottom right corner, "UUA.ORG " is written in blue along the curve of the rainbow border.

🏳️‍🌈 Happy Pride Month! 🏳️‍🌈
LGBTQIA+ people are powerful, cherished, and vital to our UU community. This month—and every month—we celebrate your brilliance and recommit to building a world where all people are safe, free, and loved.
#PrideMonth #UU #BelovedCommunity

“We are called to be builders of beloved community, not because it is easy, but because it is holy.”

- Rev. Meg Riley (Unitarian Universalist Minister, LGBTQIA2S+ Advocate, Former UUA Director of Advocacy & Witness, UUA Co-Moderator, & Huff Post Blogger) b. 1955.

Rise up for Reston Pride! Join @uureston at Lake Anne as we celebrate equality, freedom, and the vibrant LGBTQIA+ community. 🏳️‍🌈

Stop by our booth for a stardust blessing from Rev. Aileen. Whether you’re seeking spiritual community or just a space that sees you for you—you belong here.

Join us this Sunday at 10am for our weekly service. As we celebrate Pride, Rev. Aileen Fitzke will explore what freedom means? And who gets to define it? When the freedom of a few curtails the freedom of the many, is that truly freedom?

Join us this Sunday at 10am for our Memorial Day service. Rev. Aileen Fitzke will remember the heroes who fought for the rights and freedoms that we hold dear. What were their dreams for the world? How do we honor the ideals they fought for today?

Join us this Sunday at 10am for our weekly service. Lay-leader Andrée Comiskey will explore the power of poetry. How might words heal, create community, and move our spirits? What do atheist conches, bread, jury duty, home, running in church, and the loneliness of God have in common?