Welcome!
At Unitarian Universalist Church West we invite you to come as you are and leave inspired.
This community of diverse, compassionate, and inquisitive souls is a supportive spiritual community in which:
- Individual beliefs are respected and celebrated
- Spiritual and intellectual growth are encouraged
- The interdependent web of life is respected
- Children and adults explore all the world’s religions
- People from many different life paths worship, work, play, share and learn together.
Whether you’re looking for a community to raise your children with open minds, or seeking fun with a spiritual community, or hoping for a group of committed social justice advocates, or simply in need of a place to go for soul-stirring worship, we are excited to meet you where you are, and see how we can all learn and grow together.
Join us in exploring life’s deepest questions in a spiritually diverse, supportive, and challenging community. Get in touch by Contacting Us!
What We Do
We put our Unitarian Universalist faith into action through projects that serve human needs and by addressing important issues like racism, homophobia, and the environment. Adults, teens and children work together to help make the world a more just, peaceful, and sustainable place.
Congregation members get to know each other and build community through fellowship groups, learning groups, and spiritual practice groups. Adult classes and events also allow people to share their unique gifts and interests, while build lasting connections.
Our Religious Education program guides children and youth as they explore many kinds of truth and meaning. At the core of the program is a deep respect for each child’s curiosity and understanding, and opportunities to learn to care for one another, for others, and for the earth.
In worship, we sing and reflect, and hear music, stories, and wise words from diverse sources both sacred and secular. We learn and laugh together as we address life’s puzzles, unpack the issues of the day and share inspiration to help move the world towards justice.Church Members Say…
My church friends were a tremendous emotional support for me during a hard time and it was so great to know I would always have a place to go where I would be accepted no matter what.
I firmly believe that you cannot develop your faith in isolation. We need community. We need to be able to discuss and challenge our beliefs. We need to tap into the wealth of knowledge and experience that is out there. UUCW offers all of this in a safe and caring environment.
This congregation makes me a better person. It keeps me from being lazy about my values and about working toward making changes in things that I think need changing. I come as I am, and I really do leave inspired by all the efforts of so many different people here.
Minister and Staff
Brianna is originally from Madison where she grew up at the First Unitarian Society, making her way through the religious education program and working in the nursery. Her BA is in International Studies with a focus on culture from UW-Madison, and she has worked with youth at a community center and an elementary school in Madison. She and her husband moved to Milwaukee recently to make it easier for Brianna to pursue her Master’s in Social Work at UWM.
What Unitarian Universalists Believe
Our faith tradition is diverse and inclusive. Historically, we grew from the union of two radical Christian groups: the Universalists, who organized in 1793, and the Unitarians, who organized in 1825. Those two joined together in 1961 to become the Unitarian Universalist Association.
What Unitarian Universalists believe today, however, is not limited to the Christianity of our ancestors. We hold our beliefs as individuals, and have no shared creed. Our congregations include people of many beliefs. We do have a shared covenant — the Unitarian Universalist Principles, listed below – which guide our way of being religious together.
We Unitarian Universalists think for ourselves and reflect together on important questions:
We join together not because we have a shared concept of the divine. Rather we gather knowing that life is richer in community than when we go it alone. We gather to know and be known, to comfort and be comforted, to celebrate the mystery that binds us, each to all. Learn more.
Unitarian Universalist views about life after death are informed by both science and spiritual traditions. Many of us live with the assumption that life does not continue after death, and many of us hold it as an open question, wondering if our minds will have any awareness when we are no longer living. Few of us believe in divine judgment after death. It’s in our religious DNA: the Universalist side of our tradition broke with mainstream Christianity by rejecting the idea of eternal damnation.
We companion dying people and their loved ones through the sad journey of saying goodbye, and the long journey of grief, and our ministers create personalized services that mourn and celebrate the unique individual who has died. Learn more.
When we read scripture in worship, whether it is the Bible, the Dhammapada, or the Tao Te-Ching, we interpret it as a product of its time and its place. There is wisdom there, and there are inspiring stories, but scripture cannot be interpreted narrowly or oppressively. But in our tradition, scripture is never the only word, or the final word, because we trust in the human capacity to use reason and draw conclusions about religion. Influenced by experience, culture, and community, each of us ultimately chooses what is sacred to us. Learn more.
The Unitarian Universalist Principles
Unitarian Universalist congregations covenant to affirm and promote these seven principles:
- The inherent worth and dignity of every person
- Justice, equity and compassion in human relations
- Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
- A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
- The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large
- The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all
- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part
We live out these Principles within a living tradition of wisdom and spirituality that draws from sources as diverse as science, poetry, scripture, and personal experience:
- Direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life
- Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love
- Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life
- Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves
- Humanist teachings which counsel us to focus on this life and how to ethically treat others, to heed the guidance of reason and science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit
- Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature
These principles and sources of faith are foundational to our religious community.