Love shows up: January update from Side With Love – First Unitarian Church of Honolulu

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Image description: The Side With Love logo with “Side With Love” in orange block letters next to a hand drawn black heart.

A new year always invites reflection and resolve. As we step into 2026 together, we do so in a world that feels tender, fragile, and full of possibility all at once. At Side With Love, we enter this new year rooted in the same truth that has always guided us: love is not passive. Love shows up. Love organizes. Love tells the truth and strains toward justice.

That’s why we begin each year with 30 Days of Love—our annual invitation to practice love as a public, courageous, world-shaping force. Beginning January 19th, congregations and individuals across our movement will be showing up for democracy, dignity, and collective liberation in ways both big and small. This is how we remind one another that love still has work to do—and that we are stronger when we do it together.

Below you’ll find ways to plug into 30 Days of Love, along with upcoming events, resources, and opportunities to stay connected in the months ahead.

May this new year meet you with courage for the hard work, tenderness for your own becoming, and companions for the road ahead. May your love be practiced boldly, your hope be rooted deeply, and your joy be sustained in the long work of justice.

The Side with Love Team

30 Days of Love 2026

Love At The Center: Reimagining the World As It Could Be:

Mon, Jan 19, 2026 through Mon, Feb 16, 2026

At a time when fear, violence, and extraction dominate our politics and our planet, we practice another way. We believe love is not fragile; it is fierce. It grounds our organizing, fuels our imagination, and sustains our communities. Over five weeks, we will move through a journey from imagination to action, rooting our freedom dreams in faith and bringing them to life in our world.

Each week, we will have a written reflection from Side With Love staff; a conversation with a UU theologian; a multigenerational family activity; reflection questions for journaling; a meditative body practice; and a coloring sheet connected to the weekly theme.

If you need spiritual sustenance before then, check out our offerings from 30 Days of Love 2025, 2024, or 2023.

January Events from Side With Love

Jan 7: Green Sanctuary Office Hours

For 35 years, the Green Sanctuary program has supported UUs in protecting our environment. We honor that work and we need to transform our commitments and actions to respond to the challenges of our times.

The new Green Sanctuary 2030: Mobilizing for Climate Justice offers a flexible, manageable, and impactful process to support UUs in transforming their congregations through climate justice.

Monthly Office Hours are here for anyone with questions on how Green Sanctuary 2030 can support UUs to transform our congregations through climate justice. Review the short Orientation Video then join us on Jan 7 at 7pm ET/ 6 CT/ 5 MT/ 4 PT/ 3 AKT/ 1pm HT in the office hours to get all your questions answered. Current Green Sanctuary 2030 Teams, this time is for you, too!

Jan 12: The Gathering – Economic Non-Cooperation

This month, Rev. Mykal Slack will ground us with music, Nicole Pressley will share teachings about noncooperation, and we will hear from UUs active in the campaigns to stop Avelo Airlines and AT&T from contracting with ICE.

Join us on Jan 12 at 8pm ET/ 7 CT/ 6 MT/ 5 PT/4 AT/ 2 HT for The Gathering, a monthly virtual event from Side With Love designed to offer:

Spiritual Grounding – Strengthen your heart and spirit for the work ahead.
Political Analysis – Understand the threats to democracy and justice.
Collective Action – Organize with others to block anti-democratic forces and build a just and loving world

See you at The Gathering to strengthen your spirit, make sense of the threats to democracy, and take meaningful action alongside others!

If you are on staff or a board member of a congregation, we encourage you to ALSO attend Now What: The Gathering for Congregational Leaders on January 14.

Jan 28: Green Sanctuary 2030 Celebration

In times when it can seem hard to identify joys and successes, celebration is an act of resistance and reimagining.

So let’s celebrate your congregation’s climate justice work!

We invite all to join us on Jan 28 at 7pm ET/ 6 CT/ 5 MT/ 4 PT/ 3 AKT/ 1pm HT for our Green Sanctuary Celebration, honoring the incredible climate justice work happening around the country in our congregations.

During the celebration, Green Sanctuary 2030 teams share brief updates on their climate actions. We all get so many fantastic ideas and leave inspired by the ways UUs are advancing climate justice in our communities.

All work done is worth celebrating, so be sure to tell us what you’ve done so we can name and appreciate it!

This celebration is always joyful and fun, centering the very real ways all of you are making a change.