Side With Love Events in Fall 2026

• The Gathering – Declarations of Democracy; 

• Creating Climate Justice Community Meeting Series, and 

• UU the Vote Solidarity Summits. 

Additionally, we’ll be opening applications for congregational teams for Tending SOIL, our congregational justice team leadership training, and we hope your congregation joins us!

Finally, we want to update you on the social witness process and share some of our top resources.

Read on for information about each of our programs and how your congregation can engage.

The Gathering

The Gathering is Side With Love’s monthly virtual event, a space to strengthen your spirit, make sense of the political moment, and take meaningful action alongside Unitarian Universalists and justice-seekers across the country. (Wondering what it’s like? Watch our trailer to get a sense of the experience!)

Each month, we come together to ground ourselves spiritually, deepen our political analysis, and move into action together. Because we know that the work of justice is not sustained by urgency alone. It is sustained by community, nourishment, and the practice of returning again and again to the vision of the world we are building.

As the US marks 250 years, this fall The Gathering will examine the limits and possibilities of American democracy and our sacred call to shape a multiracial, interdependent democracy where everyone can thrive at Side With Love’s monthly event to strengthen your spirit, make sense of the threats to democracy, and take meaningful action alongside others!

• August 10: Healing and Repair

• September 14: Solidarity

• October 12: 10 years after Standing Rock 

• November 9: Elections

• December 14: Spiritual practice

UU the Vote: Solidarity Summits

As part of UU the Vote 2026: Ignite Solidarity, Reimagine Democracy, Solidarity Summits are regional interfaith justice training and practice gatherings designed to strengthen the connections, skills, and capacities needed for this moment.

These gatherings bring together Unitarian Universalists, people of faith across traditions, lay leaders, organizers, advocates, and community partners to strengthen regional networks, deepen relationships, and practice the kind of solidarity this moment demands.

Join a Solidarity Summit in your area! You can also host your own!

• August 28 – 30: Pennsylvania Solidarity Summit

• September 5: Arizona Solidarity Summit

• September 18 – 20: Tennessee Solidarity Summit

• September 19: Camp Democracy in Washington, DC

• September 26-27: Williamsburg Virginia Solidarity Summit

• September 26: Solidarity Central: UU Advocacy Network of IL Springfield Summit

• October 2 – 4: Texas Solidarity Summit

• October 3: Northland Solidarity Summit in Duluth, MN

• October 3: Colorado Solidarity Summit

• October 17: Connecticut Solidarity Summit

Community Defense and Safety Training Series

The Democracy Defense and Community Safety Training series is designed to expand our capacity for election protection and neighborhood defense. We will share concrete safety tools and practices for our collective wellbeing. Drop in to one or each of these trainings!

• Aug 12: Democracy Defense and Community Safety Training

• Aug 19: Site & Event Safety: Defending Democracy Means Protecting the Commons

• Aug 26: Democracy Defense and Community Safety Training

Our Recommended Resources

• Action Center: Weekly Action Alerts

• Toolkit: Six Questions Congregations Need to Answer About Community Safety

• Training: Tune Up to Show Up: A Skills & Risk Assessment Refresher  

• Toolkit: Grounded, Resilient, & Responsible – Responding & Organizing in Authoritarian Times

• 2026 UU the Vote Toolkit

• Toolkit: Climate Resilience through Disaster Response and Community Care

• Toolkit: UUs Who Show Up for UUs Who Show Up: Guidelines for Arrestee / Defendant Support

  • All previous Trainings & Webinars

  • All Toolkits & Guides

  • All Spiritual Nourishment offerings

Green Sanctuary 2030 Community Meeting Series

Climate justice calls us to respond with urgency and moral clarity.  Honoring the interdependent web of existence, we commit to cultivating communities of care so that all beings can flourish and thrive.

This is not simply an environmental issue. It is a spiritual and ethical commitment to one another and to the Earth itself. We partner with movements and coalitions working on the frontlines of climate justice, and we support congregations to transform their communities through initiatives like Green Sanctuary 2030: Mobilizing for Climate Justice and the UU Climate Justice Revival.

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.  Our monthly community meetings nurture resilient, thriving communities through climate actions that prioritize justice. All are invited to join us to learn together, support each other, and celebrate progress.

• August 19: Love is the Framework for Climate Justice

• September 16: Creating Hubs of Climate Resilience and Community Care

• October 21: Standing Rock Anniversary

• November 18: Fractal Practices for Faithful Climate Justice

Tending SOIL: Leadership Program for Congregational Justice Teams

Tending SOIL is Side with Love’s leadership program for Unitarian Universalists doing justice and organizing work in their congregations who want to work with others to more faithfully and strategically engage in the transformation of the world through liberating Love.

Through SOIL, congregational or regional teams of 3-5 participants will strengthen their Skills, develop their Organizing Plan, practice Interdependence within and beyond their congregation, and deepen their understanding of Collective Liberation (ie, SOIL!)

Applications are due October 30th, 2026. The program runs January – August 2027

Info Session

• September 27: Tending SOIL Program Info Session

Social Witness Process: 2024-2027 Congregational Study Action Issue (CSAI): Abolition, Transformation, and Faith Formation

At General Assembly 2027, delegates will vote whether to adopt the Congregational Study Action Issue (CSAI): Abolition, Transformation, and Faith Formation as a Statement of Conscience.

Want to learn more about Abolition and what this CSAI means for our faith? In addition to two workshops from GA 2026, there is a robust learning hub from Church of the Larger Fellowship which includes monthly conversations as well as recordings from previous sessions and additional resources.

Upcoming Monthly Conversations on Abolition

• August 27: Abolition & ICE Detention

• September 13: Realities of Life in Prison

• October 20: Abolition and Policing

Workshops on the CSAI from General Assembly 2026

• Imagining Abolition: From the founding of this country, coercion and punishment have been used as a way to enforce compliance. This can be seen from parenting, schooling and the way business is conducted. Our faith calls us to critique the theology of punishment that has become so prominent. This begins when we start to imagine other ways to live that are, perhaps, idealistic, but that hold the seeds of how we move into a loving, healing, holistic practice of living in the world.

• Abolition in Practice: This workshop will include a panel of leaders who practice abolition in its many variations. Panelists will discuss abolition as a spiritual practice, abolition as seen in Minneapolis, abolition in police and prison settings, and how abolition intersects with the way we approach environmental justice.