UCE Mission

At the Unitarian Church of Evanston our mission is to nurture the human spirit for a world made whole.

Our Newly Adopted Unitarian Universalist Values

Our Unitarian Universalist Association has undergone and thorough, meaningful, and inclusive process of reviewing the principles and sources of our faith as they have been articulated in our association’s bylaws since the 1980’s.

At the 2024 General Assembly, we passed by an 80% majority new language that expresses our values as: Interdependence, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Generosity, and Justice, all centered around the value of liberating Love.

As Unitarian Universalists, we covenant, congregation-to-congregation and through our Association, to support and assist one another in our ministries. We draw from our heritages of freedom, reason, hope, and courage, building on the foundation of love.

Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values. We are accountable to one another for doing the work of living our shared values through the spiritual discipline of Love.

Inseparable from one another, these shared values are:

Interdependence
We honor the interdependent web of all existence. With reverence for the great web of life and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it. We covenant to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation. We will create and nurture sustainable relationships of care and respect, mutuality and justice. We will work to repair harm and damaged relationships.

Pluralism
We celebrate that we are all sacred beings, diverse in culture, experience, and theology. We covenant to learn from one another in our free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We embrace our differences and commonalities with Love, curiosity, and respect.

Justice
We work to be diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all thrive. We covenant to dismantle racism and all forms of systemic oppression. We support the use of inclusive democratic processes to make decisions within our congregations, our Association, and society at large.

Transformation
We adapt to the changing world. We covenant to collectively transform and grow spiritually and ethically. Openness to change is fundamental to our Unitarian and Universalist heritages, never complete and never perfect.

Generosity
We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope. We covenant to freely and compassionately share our faith, presence, and resources. Our generosity connects us to one another in relationships of interdependence and mutuality.

Equity
We declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion. We covenant to use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities

You can read more about the process of developing and adopting this values statements here.

Our UCE Vision Statements

These are the values that we, the congregation of the Unitarian Church of Evanston, strive to live.

May these aspirations help us to build the world we hope for:

We practice Beloved Community by welcoming, affirming and promoting the worth and dignity of people of all ages, abilities, backgrounds, cultures, and identities within, among, and beyond our physical and virtual spaces.

We support the spiritual growth and well-being of our congregational community, cultivating gratitude, joy, curiosity, wonder, and an openness to personal and relational transformation as we strive to build a better world.

We commit to anti-racism and anti-oppression with honesty, humility, and accountability. We bravely and lovingly engage in challenging conversations that explore our personal, congregational, and community histories and inform our actions to dismantle racism.

We engage in our interconnected world, by forming diverse and lasting connections in the community, and acting for peace, social, environmental, and economic justice.

~approved at Annual Congregational Meeting, May 15, 2022

Beloved Community

Our Vision Statements embrace the vision of Beloved Community as first expressed by the early twentieth century theologian Josiah Royce and then filled out through the 1950s and 1960s by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as “the vision of people all over the world sharing the earth’s riches; eliminating poverty, hunger, and homelessness; eradicating racism, discrimination and all forms of oppression; and solving disputes through peaceful reconciliation and non-violent conflict resolution.”

– Mistakes and Miracles: Congregations on the Road to Multiculturalism by Nancy Palmer Jones and Karin Lin