Come explore how to elevate your feelings of calmness and security above the anxiety and stress we are all currently experiencing. We will experience sound healing through drumming, crystal bowls, breath, and humming. Bring your drum if you have one, yoga mat, and blanket. Not required to participate. A few extras will be available if you have none. For more information, please contact Randy Bish or Heidi Shaffer Bish.
The KentUU Board of Trustees invites all members and friends to an information session after the second service, in person in Hobbs Hall and on Zoom.
Topics will include:
Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/97464785626
Join us bi-weekly on Friday evenings in Fessenden Hall where we will be using art prompts & materials to process current events, and check in on each other. We will create collaborative projects and participatory art that we can share at our local spots. A wide variety of supplies will be provided from clay, pastels, paint, fiber arts, wood burning, collage, zine making, image transfers and much more! You are also welcome to bring your own supplies. The initial session and prompts will be facilitated by Kate Starks, but members will take turns leading the sessions and sharing their favorite mediums as we work on these projects together.
First session starts on Friday, February 13th from 5-7pm through June 2026.
March 13th
March 27th
April 10th
April 24th
May 8th
May 22nd
With Katie Grigg-Miller
Relatively recent discoveries have uncovered a wealth of apocryphal writings from the time of Jesus, which were either lost, suppressed, or destroyed. These fascinating texts reveal a surprising diversity and flexibility of religious thought, and may even lead us to re-define our concept of “Christianity.”
Making use of recent scholarship, we’ll pull back the curtain on the lifestyles, beliefs and practices of the earliest Christians, and we’ll investigate why and how so many texts were rejected, resulting in a narrowed Christian doctrine. We’ll also touch on Christian Nationalism and its backlash on women’s agency, comparing it to the lifestyle of the original Christians.
Join us in a discovery of the social justice codes, women leaders, and inspiring words of wisdom of the ancients.
In the Historic KentUU Sanctuary
Dates: March 5, 12, 26, April 2, 9
We are no longer able to be a recycling drop-off point for soft plastics, such as grocery bags. Local Giant Eagles stores in Stow, Ravenna, Streetsboro, and Tallmadge all have collection bins that you can use to recycle your soft plastics. We are sorry for any inconvenience.
We have appreciated the opportunity to work with the Girl Scouts and TREX as we collected the plastic in exchange for TREX benches made from recycled plastic. Unfortunately, the TREX bench program is no longer being offered.
Much gratitude for Jennifer Gregg for keeping this ministry going all these years and earning us so many benches for outside Hobbs!
Free and Open to All Who Support Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
No pre-registration required. Drop ins are welcome.
Learn to create a community where everyone has a voice and multiple needs are considered, without bogging down the decision-making process with endless meetings.
Improve your leadership skills for organizations (existing or emerging) using non-hierarchical, consensual methods and practices.
We’ll explore and practice “circle-based” discussion and decision-making techniques from Art of Hosting, Liberating Structures, and Sociocracy as well as big-picture strategies from various schools of thought leadership.
Led by Rev. Renee Ruchotzke, Affiliated Community Minister
Email renee (at) kentuu.org for more information
First Monday of the month, 6:30pm – 8:00pm
Fessenden Hall (Church Basement)
UU Church of Kent
228 Gougler Ave
Kent, OH 44240
It is with great joy that our congregation’s members voted unanimously to call the Reverend Kristina Church to be our settled minister at a special meeting on January 18, 2026.
The Reverend Church has been serving us as a contract minister since August of 2024 Being called changes her role from being contracted on a yearly basis to long-term covenantal partnership with us.
The special meeting and vote were the culmination of a months-long discernment process that compared the hopes and dreams of our congregants around ministry to the ministry being delivered by Reverend Church.
Thanks to the Contract-to-call task force for their exemplary work in gathering the information and writing a summary report (emailed to church members and friends) that showed that we, the congregation and the Reverend Kristina Church to be a great match.
Photos by Brad Bolton
Join us for an evening of the Dances of Universal Peace!
Dance leader: Alicia Patrice
Musicians: Lisa Thiel on banjo, Dawn Heartsong on percussion, Daniel Kennedy on percussion, and Emily Hall, Kent UU Director of Music Ministries, on guitar and flute
The Dances of Universal Peace are spiritual practice in motion. Drawing on the sacred phrases, scripture, and poetry of the many spiritual traditions of the earth, the Dances blend chant, live music and evocative movement into a living experience of unity, peace and integration. This taste of our true nature – as Universal Peace – opens to the possibility of a deep spiritual revolution within the person.
The Dances of Universal Peace are beginner friendly and we welcome all to join us! There will be space in our circle to participate seated and to sit and receive the dances for those who wish to. This spiritual practice welcomes people of all faiths to move and connect together.
This event will include musicians from and be a fundraiser for the music ministry program at Kent UU. Donations will benefit the work of the music ministry program to connect, inspire, and empower our world through collective musicking.
Suggested donation $10-15. All amounts welcome, no one turned away for lack of funds. If you are able to donate more, it allows for someone who cannot donate to attend. If you are not able to donate, please come as our guest.
Event will be held in Hobbs Hall (Fellowship Hall located behind the Church). Hobbs Hall is in the building with solar panels on the roof next to the gravel parking lot.
217 N. Mantua Street, Kent, OH 44240
Directions and Parking
This is a quarterly event. Upcoming dates:
This month we support, Doctors for Global Health (DGH), as our special collection recipient. DGH is a private, not-for-profit organization promoting health, education, art, and other human rights throughout the world.
The DGH Mission: ”To improve health and foster other human rights with those most in need by accompanying communities, while educating and inspiring others to action.”
Our Committee on Shared Ministry will be hosting a book reading/discussion group to reflect and learn from Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s brilliant book, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World.
This Common Read offers a glimpse into one of our faith’s foundational sources, Judaism. Readers follow the author, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, into a framework for making amends offered by the 12th century Jewish physician and scholar, Maimonides.
Written for people of any or no faith tradition, On Repentance and Repair introduces practices for accountability that can bring us into wholeness and make a difference in our personal, community, and national relationships.
Co-facilitated by Rev. Kristina and Dani Beale
2:00 – 3:30pm in Fessenden Hall
Sunday, March 15
Sunday, March 29
Sunday, April 12
Sunday, April 26
Did you know that Unitarian Universalism traces its beginning back to the early Christian Church? Are you curious about the long and rich history of Unitarian Universalism and the many radicals, rebels and reformers, the heroes and the heretics who are part of our liberal tradition?
Each week we’ll start with a shared meal at 6:00pm in Hobbs Hall, then (about 6:30pm) watch an hour long documentary from Long Strange Trip, a six-part series by Ron Cordes, followed by discussion afterward. Each video explores the history of Unitarian and Universalist thought and practice from its early, liberal strands at the beginning of the Christian era to what we know today as Unitarian Universalism.
6:00pm – 8:30pm – Hobbs Hall
Friday, February 20: Part 1: In the Beginning… (We’ll join the Soulful Home families in Fessenden Hall for the shared potluck)
Friday, February 27: Part 2: The Birth of Unitarianism
Friday, March 6: Part 3: American Unitarianism, 1620-1860
Friday, March 13: Part 4: Universalism, 1600-1860
Friday, March 20: Part 5: Evolution, 1861-1961 (We’ll join the Soulful Home families in Fessenden Hall for the shared potluck)
Friday, March 27: Part 6: Unitarian Universalism
Led by Rev. Kristina and Claudia Miller
This class is open to everyone. We hope you’ll join us!
Are you looking for a low stress way to get involved or support the church? If so, we have an opportunity for your consideration.
The church is in need of a few folks to help keep the church signs updated.
What’s involved? The Gougler Ave. sign requires periodic message updating — maybe once a month (or maybe even every other month). The sign located on the Mantua St. side of Hobbs Hall requires a bit more attention as it is used for both church messaging and rental advertising.
Even the little jobs mean a lot and have a big impact. Might you be interested in supporting the church this way? If so, please contact MaryBeth at [email protected].
Don’t miss the latest art show in the Hobbs Hall Gallery: The Art of Andy Krebs: A Free and Responsible Search.
Artwork will be on display from January 9 through February 28.
Several selected pieces will be available for purchase.
Proceeds support a local artist and will also benefit the Kent UU Church.
The pieces here are drawn from four bodies of work: landscape batiks, abstract birds, sun and moon faces, and poetry pieces. Together, they share free and loose processes of creating that relinquish some control over the outcomes and allow for play.
Each type of artwork embodies the practice of surrender in its own way. Hot wax is used to create the batiks, and its flowing, free-spirited nature yields fluid and unpredictable results. The birds begin with a continuous blind contour line drawing, a method that involves closing one’s eyes and drawing without lifting the pencil. The suns and moons are made rapidly and evolve without preconceived images of the final products. And finally, the poem pieces are built upon phrases that arise from free-flowing thought. Even the breadth of the show itself, drawn from multiple series of works, is a move toward greater freedom and less convention.
Highly rendered, more realistic artwork deserves its place in the world and is satisfying to create; I know this from my own experience. But as I’ve developed as an artist and a person, I’ve embraced a less rigid and more curious approach to creating and living. These works reflect that part of me. I have found that this way, making art acts as a practice toward surrender to life itself. I aspire to spend my entire life growing, living freely, loving bravely, and learning to be comfortable with the unknown. I hope that these pieces inspire a loosening, playfulness, and curiosity in you, too.
-Andy Krebs
