About UUCAV

Welcome!

If you are here looking to find the “flavor” of this congregation, this is where we do our best to describe it. We are a caring, open-minded religious community that encourages you to seek your own spiritual path.

We gather to nurture our spirits and put our faith into action by helping to make our community—and the world—a better place. Of course, there is nothing like coming to a new community and joining right in, but if you'd like a little better idea of who we are before taking that step, please continue reading.

Most members come to the worship service most weeks, but some find their primary source of connection to the community in other ways. We have a religious education program where most weeks children come to the first part of the service and then depart. Other Sundays start with "children's chapel" or are intergenerational. Nursery care is provided, as well, and starts a little bit before the service for drop-off. 

We are a regional congregation, and draw from a number of surrounding towns. Beyond Stow, Acton, Hudson, and Marlborough, we count within our population people from the surrounding towns of Boxborough, Maynard, Bolton, Cambridge, Harvard, Berlin, and even have members outside of our state and country.

For more about our congregation, please visit our Newcomers page. 

Building Community

For many, community is what brings us to a congregation:  sharing in each other’s lives, common purposes, joys and sorrows. While one might choose to worship alone, being in community is missing from the lives of many people today. That it is a loving, open-minded community is what compels many, over time, to consider UUCAV as their other, or real home. 

Our community is richly interwoven in so many ways we could fill pages, and we do throughout this website and especially over on the Getting Involved page! Some examples:

  • Our annual apple pie making, involving people in picking, peeling, dough-rolling, baking, and selling.
  • A weekly peace vigil in front of the congregation on the town common.
  • A coffeehouse with folk music, food, and fellowship that draws as many people from the surrounding community as from within the congregation.
  • A memorial service that honors the life and mourns the loss of a member.
  • Staffing a table together at local Pride events.
  • Our annual spring trip communal trip to Ferry Beach with beach walks and fireside conversations.
  • Our small group ministries that gather together small communities monthly to get to know one other on a deeper level. Members of all ages teach our children, in and outside classrooms.   

Together we celebrate and support our members doing social justice work locally and around the country and globe. We visit each other in times of ill health, go Christmas Caroling, walk, make cookies, knit, drum, chat, laugh, and kvetch.  And we get together every Sunday after the worship service for coffee hour, just for fellowship.

Not everyone does everything; most follow where their heart leads them and find community and fellowship with others they find there. Years weave an ever-richer tapestry.

Individual Spiritual Growth

Most of us have come to this congregation seeking something -- truth, knowledge, love, community, justice, growth, understanding, and/or peace.  UUCAV offers rich and diverse opportunities for exploration, and what we find is often transformative.  Our Spiritual Growth and Community Center offers a rich array of spiritual growth programs.  And our Small Group Ministry program offers monthly groups that go deeper on a variety of topics together and build connection.  

Occasionally people have epiphanies. Sometimes support from friends is just the boost needed to make a major change. Sometimes our soul and spirit just grow stronger, day by day.

Caring Across Community

"Intimacy and Ultimacy" is what Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams said brings people to religious congregations.  In other words, we yearn for connection.  At UUCAV we support each other in little ways through sharing our joys and sorrows in worship and reaching out to one another.  When cares go deeper, our Lay Ministers team helps with reach-out and with bringing needed care.  And our minister is always available if you reach out.  

Social Service & Social Action 

There are always opportunities for you to volunteer to be of service, and for us to support one another. Ghandi said, "The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others."  Acts of kindness, given and received, are at the heart of our faith, which is centered in Love.  

Unitarian Universalists are dedicated to living our faith and practicing what we preach. Working for civil rights and combating oppression are essential parts of our spiritual journey.  We work for justice in ways that resonate with our Principles, from protecting our environment to standing up for bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender people. We refer you to our Social Justice page for more details of our Social Justice commitment and program.

Religious Education

Unitarian Universalist religious education is grounded in nurturing our children and adults. We give people the building blocks with which to form their own beliefs rather than indoctrinating them into a system of thought. We offer children and adults information and support to discover and explore their own spiritual beliefs; help in expressing their Unitarian Universalist religious identity; information on our Unitarian Universalist heritage; support in developing and living by their own ethical codes; and the basic teachings of other religions, especially the Judeo Christian traditions from which Unitarian Universalism emerged.

Please visit our pages on Religious Education for more information regarding programming for children and youth.

More About Our Congregation 

We are a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association of America, numbering over 1,000 congregations in North America and belong to the New England Region.  

We have approximately 225 members. A larger population of friends identify as part of the congregation but are not official members.  Unitarian Universalism is a congregational-based religion, which means decisions stay at the local level.  Our professional staff works with lay leaders who sit on our governing board and head all our committees. The duties of elected positions and rules for the congregation's operations are defined in our bylaws. Every member of the congregation is eligible to vote to elect our officials, as well as approve both the annual budget and changes to the bylaws.  Our church is supported by a combination of rentals and fundraisers, but most importantly member pledges, which are freely given based on financial circumstances and desire to support our community.  See the Members & Friends Area for more information about membership, governance, and stewardship of our church.

Our Congregation's History

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation in the Assabet Valley traces its origins back to four different churches in the Assabet Valley. Most recently, we are a merger of the First Parish Church of Stow and Acton, which was in our current building most recently, and the Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson. Our churches just merged in July 2026! Both FPC and UCMH are products of previous mergers, merging after the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Churches of America merged in 1961.

In 1969 the Universalist Church of Acton and the First Parish Church of Stow combined to become First Parish Church of Stow and Acton. The First Parsh Church of Stow Stow traces itself back the farthest to 1683 when the town of Stow sought to settle a minister as a condition of its incorporation. The First Parish Church of Stow became Unitarian in 1833. The Universalist Church had its beginnings in Acton when the Reverend Hosea Ballou began preaching sermons on universal salvation in 1814.

In 1972 the Unitarian churches in Marlborough and Hudson combined to become the Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson.

To read more about our church history: