We invite you to join us on the journey...

We hope you will find among us an invitation: to celebrate life together in a caring community, to welcome children in the communal experience, to honor the diverse religious backgrounds of an interfaith constituency, to engage in personal spiritual growth, to be present for others who also search, to cooperate in supporting the community centered in worship, deepened by educational and social opportunities, and to work together with others for a just world. If the journey begins with the first step, we hope it may be in our company.

	Our Mission: To Seek the Light of Truth, To Share the Warmth of Love, To Live the Energy of Action

We, the members of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Andover (affectionately known as the UUCiA), join with one another to create and sustain a caring community which:

• nurtures spiritual growth,
• shares our Unitarian Universalist tradition,
• values and celebrates diversity, and
• is a liberal beacon, grounded in hope, for a just world.

Introductory Brochure is an introduction and guide to our congregational life. This is a static representation of who we are - you are encouraged to pay us a visit. You will find us to be a warm and embracing congregation, informal in style.

Our congregation is free and self governing. In North America, Unitarianism and Universalism arose as alternatives to Puritanism in New England and the religious establishments in the middle and southern colonies. It reflected the same impulse in religion that the American Revolution did in political life. We are affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association to support our wider work and outreach. Within the UUA, we are a member of the Massachusetts Bay District, a group of 57 congregations in north eastern Massachusetts.

Unitarian and Universalist traditions in the western branch of human culture extend back to the time of Jesus (in practicing his Judaism, his theology was unitarian).  It continued in various forms (usually persecuted as heresy by the majority faiths) until it emerged in such places as Transylvania (with the tutelage of a Unitarian king), Poland, England, and the Netherlands. Consistently we practiced freedom and tolerance, writing the first edict of religious tolerance in Europe, always with an openness to new truth.  In time among us, there has emerged a truly global orientation to religious practice, finding among the many branches of world religious tradition insights into our shared humanity and guidance for the spiritual life.