A New Year, A New Look for HUU

As we step into a New Year, we are preparing for a fresh chapter in how HUU shares its light with the world. We are excited to announce an upcoming update to our website, featuring a new logo and design that reflects the vibrant, growing, and welcoming congregation we are!

These updates have been reviewed by our Board and are designed to make our message of love and justice more visible and accessible to our neighbors in Harrisonburg and beyond.

This transition is made possible by those who have tended our digital home for decades. We want to extend a deep, heartfelt thank you to Pat Geary, who has dedicated countless hours over the past 23 years as our website manager. Her faithful stewardship has been a gift to us all. As Pat "passes the torch," Kim Newton has taken on the task of the website redesign, with ongoing updates to be coordinated by Tom Hook.

We want everyone to feel at home with these changes and invite you to join us for:

• Sunday, January 4: a brief information session following the service to introduce the new site

• Sunday, January 25: a longer orientation session after service for members and committee leaders who want a deeper look at the site and tools it offers

  
  

We look forward to sharing this new way of carrying our light into the community together!

Lee Anna Farrall

HUU Board Moderator

About Our New Logo

by Kim Newton, Director of Children's Religious Exploration

Unitarian Universalist congregations worldwide celebrate diversity of thought, expression, and experience. This vision of harmony alongside diversity is at the heart of the faith we share with all other UU congregations; yet, each congregation has a unique identity, history, and expression of their work within their communities and the world.

Our current HUU congregation, which began in 1989, is certainly a unique one. Our evolution from the days of meeting in members' homes and rented spaces, to our current lively habitation of the historic Dale Enterprise Schoolhouse, is a history to celebrate.

Over time, and thanks to the contributions of many members, we have become a beacon of welcoming community for seekers in Harrisonburg and beyond. As a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association, HUU also participates with the wider UUA network of Welcoming Congregations, who pledge inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals and their families. Our mission underscores three key tasks of our welcoming community: sense-making, care-giving, and justice-seeking. We strive towards these tasks in all we do.

Our previous logos, outward symbols of our congregation's identity, have evolved alongside us; the chalice, a symbol of our faith, and the colors of the rainbow, have been central to our visual identity. In honor of our history, mission, and welcoming community, our new logo features a three-part flame to represent our three key tasks. Supported by a swooping double chalice, the colors of our logo reflect LGBTQ+ Pride and harmonize with the color palette of the UUA Rainbow Chalice.

Our updated logo reflects both our history and who we are today: warm, welcoming, and grounded in values of inclusion, care, and justice. Alongside it, you’ll see a simpler companion mark—our monogram—which we’ll use in smaller spaces like social media, footers, and signs. Both are part of the same identity, created to reflect our community, our setting, and our shared commitment to building a more compassionate world.