🌉 The Bridge Weekly
Religious Exploration at HVUUC | August 30, 2026
✨ A Note from the DRE
Hello, you gorgeous souls!
Summer seems to be simultaneously standing still and flying by, and here we are, already about to have our Religious Exploration Kick-Off Celebration this weekend!
The air is getting crisper, the nights are getting cooler, and that exciting, anticipatory change of seasons can be felt in both spirit and body. I hope this summer has provided many opportunities for adventure, joy, connection, and so much laughter!
Bring those stories to the deck this weekend—I’m looking forward to connecting, catching up, and hearing all about them! 💜
Love & Light, Jess Ox
🎉 All-Ages RE Kick-Off on the Deck — August 30!
Before our regular classes begin, we’re celebrating the start of another wonderful year of Religious Exploration together!
Join us on the deck for breakfast, connection, laughter, and some playful exploration using our UUA Deeper Joy Activity Deck. Our youth will also be filling eggs in preparation for their upcoming Youth-Led Service!
Come hungry, come curious, bring your summer stories, and come ready to play. 💜
🌱 A New Adventure for Our K–5 Explorers!
As some of our wonderful facilitators explore exciting new journeys of their own, shifts in availability have created an opportunity to bring our K–2 and 3–5 explorers together this year for My Mindfulness Passport.
Activities will be adapted for our full K–5 age range, with additional options for our younger explorers when helpful, so everyone has opportunities to wonder, move, create, learn, and stay engaged.
And I’m especially excited that I’ll be serving as the primary facilitator! Last year gave me time with our youth, this summer brought beautiful connection with our adults, and now it seems this season is calling me to our youngins. 💜 I’m thrilled to work alongside those who have been inspiring joy and wonder in our younger generations for years.
As our programs and volunteer community continue to grow, I feel confident our K–2 and 3–5 classes will branch into their own adventures again. For this season, we get to explore together—and I think there’s going to be a whole lot of joy in that! 🌎✨
🙌 Volunteers Make This Possible!
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who has already raised a hand to help make Religious Exploration happen this year! 💜
We are still welcoming volunteers to join our growing team. There are opportunities for many different interests, comfort levels, and amounts of availability—whether you love facilitating, assisting, sharing communications, helping with special activities, organizing behind the scenes, or simply being an extra caring presence in the room.
Volunteer Orientation will be offered via Zoom:
Wednesday, August 26 at 6:00 PM Friday, August 28 at 1:00 PM
👉 Volunteer Interest Form: https://form.jotform.com/262058660418055
🔥 And One More Special Moment...
In September, we’ll also have a Teacher Commissioning & Blessing during Sunday service—an opportunity for our congregation to recognize, celebrate, and bless the people helping nurture exploration, curiosity, connection, and belonging throughout our community. 💜
📦 Save Those Dryer Sheet Boxes!
We have a fun upcoming RE activity that needs your help!
If you finish a box of dryer sheets, please don’t toss the box! We’re collecting empty dryer sheet boxes for an upcoming class project.
Bring your empty boxes to RE and help us turn a little everyday recycling into something wonderfully creative. ✨
🎶 “This Joy” — Time for All Ages
This Sunday, August 30, Jess will be leading worship with The Journey Home, exploring the movement from unconscious living toward awareness, intelligence, and embodied wisdom.
And we’re bringing some JOY to our Time for All Ages! Children, youth, families—and anyone else who feels inspired—are invited to join us for “This Joy” during worship.
🎵 Listen & practice here: https://youtu.be/3aKE9sRbFrY?si=2mHF2OPy5zl4pjCR
No perfect performance required. Just bring your joy! 💜
🏕️
Youth Group Heads to Wilderness at the Smokies!
Our Youth Group adventure is almost here!
Saturday, August 29 Wilderness at the Smokies
Youth Group families, please make sure your youth is registered for RE/Youth Group and that their field trip permission form has been completed before the trip.
Parents who would like to join us can purchase a ticket through our group for $39 per ticket through August 27. Simply use the donation information at HVUUC.org, note “YG Wilderness Trip” with your payment, and let Jess know once you’ve done so.
👉 RE/Youth Group Registration: https://form.jotform.com/262060977369064 👉 Field Trip Permission Form: https://form.jotform.com/262334400217041
We are SO excited for a day of adventure, connection, laughter, and memory-making together!
🧭 Adult 1: Exploratorium Continues!
Our Adult 1 group is heading back into Exploratorium! this weekend.
TED Talks, podcasts, videos, fascinating questions, unexpected rabbit holes—who knows where the conversation will take us this time? That’s half the fun!
Come curious. ✨
🎤 Youth-Led Service — September 13
Our youth have been working with Rev. Tiffany to create a completely Youth-Led Worship Service!
They’ve been dreaming, planning, and putting the pieces together, and we can’t wait for the congregation to experience what they’re creating.
Save the date: Sunday, September 13!
🎵 Heartstrings & Harmonies
What songs move you? What music brings back a memory, shifts your energy, makes you dance, helps you grieve, or reminds you who you are?
Our Heartstrings & Harmonies survey is still open, and we’d love to hear from you!
Your responses help us discover the music living within our community and may inspire future Religious Exploration experiences along the way.
👉 Share your songs here: https://form.jotform.com/262095102298053
🗓️
A Quick Schedule Reminder
As we ease into the new RE year:
August 30 — All-Ages RE Kick-Off Celebration (No Wonder Worship) September 6 — No Religious Exploration (Wonder Worship is still a go!) September 13 — Regular RE classes begin!
💜 Gratitudes
There is so much beautiful collaboration happening behind the scenes—and so many people helping bring this community to life!
✨ Justin — for looking into our internet outage and sitting in with Rev. Tiffany and our youth class as they finalized details for their Youth-Led Service.
✨ Traci — for generously sharing her time, tools, and knowledge as she taught us about paracord weaving and its history!
✨ Heather — for facilitating Adult 2’s Show & Tell and creating space for our community to know one another a little more deeply.
✨ Brooklynn — for taking care of the bouncy house from start to finish for our church picnic this past weekend! You gave our kids a space for some BIG joy—and they had an absolute blast! 💜
✨ And every single person who has completed a class registration or volunteer form — THANK YOU! Those forms may feel like a tiny administrative task, but they make an enormous difference in our ability to plan materials, prepare spaces, communicate well, and create programs that support the people showing up.
Community is something we create together, and I am so grateful for all the ways you continue to help create ours. 💜
🌻 Finding My Fall Groove, Too!
As our families settle into new school-year rhythms, I’m finding my groove for the season, too!
My updated regular DRE hours are:
Tuesdays: 10:30 AM–3:30 PM — In Office Thursdays: 10:30 AM–3:30 PM — Remote Sundays: 9:00 AM — Religious Exploration & Beyond!
In order to keep showing up at my best for this community, I’m going to honor these hours as closely as possible—scheduling meetings, responding to communications, and tending to RE work primarily within these windows, with just a little flexibility outside of them when needed.
Thank you for helping me practice the same sustainability, intentionality, and care that we encourage throughout our Religious Exploration community. 💜
🤝 REC Meeting — September 6
Our Religious Exploration Collaborative (REC) will gather Sunday, September 6 at 5:00 PM via Zoom.
Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/95967749088?pwd=oB1bgnnsjoCQVBlRdffEwEJj0molbd.1
REC is where we step back and look at the bigger picture of Religious Exploration—what’s growing, what needs support, what we’re learning, and where we might dream next.
Your dreams, your ideas, your voice...YOU are invited! 💜