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Report from the 2026 UUA General Assembly Business Meetings

  • Writer: Nan Perigo
    Nan Perigo
  • 7 hours ago
  • 4 min read

Sunday worship at GA will be livestreamed at 11am https://www.uua.org/ga/off-site/2026/sunday-worship

The General Assembly social and worship meeting will be this coming weekend.  See uua.org/ga for more information.

GA Business sessions were held June 14-16 online.  Our delegates from Morristown UU Fellowship included Caroline Blanchard, Jeanne Craft, Nan Perigo, Judie Romano, and Paul Snellgrove.   We voted on a slate of candidates for Board and committee positions, two business issues, two Actions of Immediate Witness (AIW), and four Responsive Resolutions. We also obtained updates on ongoing business and actions by the UUA and Church of the Larger Fellowship.  Links to overall reports and business items are at the bottom of this article.

The two items of business were a proposed change to the UUA Bylaws designed to address the authority of who can suspend or place a minister’s search on hold, and a Business Resolution to establish a task force to consider policies and rules for Interim and Developmental Ministers.  These were both proposed by the same group.  There was a fair amount of discussion, including the fact that the current Bylaws of the UUA are currently under review, and the proposed amendment was actually more of a policy or procedural change than a bylaw-level rule.   The Bylaws amendment did not pass, but the Business Resolution did pass – so there will be a task force put together to look at the rules and policies regarding Interim and Developmental ministers.

The Actions of Immediate Witness were:

There were a lot of folks supporting this AIW, which was proposed by members of UU congregations and local tribes and groups in the Pacific Northwest, where changes to forestry practices and federal rules regarding uses of public lands are a major concern.

This AIW, while proposed from a place of concern by folks in NY state, was debated at length. Everyone agrees that actions need to be taken to oppose detention centers, but those who have been working on the ground held up the serious concerns that untrained protesters would get hurt due to the volatility of the people guarding the site(s) and that actions have already been in the works for July 13th – which would be interrupted by actions proposed for June 21.  UUFANJ, UURISE, and others working hard on this issue asked that the AIW be voted down in order to allow for a better planned and executed series of actions, and for proper training of protesters to proceed.

Responsive Resolutions:

The first two Responsive Resolutions were “Where are the Youth?” which gave us a goal of bringing in more Youth and Emerging Adults to attend GA 2027, and “Gratitude for UUA Support of Youth and Emerging Adults” which proposed we create the space and engagement to improve UU engagement of our youth and young adults.  The discussion included the need for removing the separation of youth from adults in UU congregations as well as creating programming to involve youth and emerging adults into our faith and faith actions.  All the Responsive Resolutions were affirmed.

RR:  Where are the Youth?

 

RR:  Gratitude for UUA Support of Youth and Emerging Adults

The third and fourth Responsive Resolutions (which also were affirmed) were

We affirm that the greatest midwife of justice is relationship. We ask the congregations and our association to reaffirm our demonstrated commitment to organizing in community, prioritizing relationships, and centering the most impacted.

Let us show up in authentic and grounded solidarity on July 13th at Delaney Hall in Newark, NJ.

 

In its 2026 UUA GA report, the Commission on Appraisal states it will be “sharing … how the issues with which the Association has been concerned in the past have or have not been resolved, and how they continue to echo in the present.” Widespread concern about the SWANA region crisis is an unresolved issue that echoes in the present. Our Association has no formal structure for addressing SWANA region concerns other than its membership in the coalition of Churches for Middle East Peace. No GA 2026 reports mentioned Churches for Middle East Peace, Palestine, or Gaza. While UUs hold the line against Christian Nationalism’s deadly impact in the US, we recognize that its foreign policy is also deadly. It intersectionally impacts people here and in other lands. US faculty were beaten and fired, and students arrested, imprisoned, and deported for speaking about the genocide in Gaza. Palantir services ICE and overseas aggression. Many UUs have ties to bombarded lands. Many UUs are in deep grief. Younger generations expect progressive institutions to be vocal. We ask the commission to include engagement with how the UUA can better include and respond to morally injured UUs regarding crises in the SWANA region.

 

Congregational Study/Action Issue (2025-27)

In addition, there was a workshop on Abolition, Transformation and Faith Formation, which is an ongoing Congregational Study/Action Issue (CSAI) based on the abolition of slavery and forced labor, replacing systems and cultures of violence, coercion and control with transformative justice and relational practices, and dismantling the prison-industrial complex.  More information at the Church of the Larger Fellowship’s site:  https://clfuu.org/abolition/

 

Resources:

Annual Reports to the 2026 General Assembly: https://www.uua.org/ga/off-site/2026/business/annual-reports

UU Service Committee Report: https://vimeo.com/1200544406 

UU Women’s Federation Report: https://vimeo.com/1200560194 

Curious about the process of UUA actions?  https://www.uua.org/action/process

More about UUA Governance: https://www.uua.org/uuagovernance

More about Abolition: Read the entire CSAI. Find resources and monthly conversations on this CSAI at CLF’s learning hub.

 

Links to proposed business items, AIW and RR:

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