What Story Are We Telling With This Year’s Stewardship Campaign?

This year, our stewardship campaign tells a story rooted in simplicity, but rich in purpose. Three small words—Still We Rise—carry the weight of a community’s resilience, a congregation’s conviction, and a shared calling to show up with courage, generosity, and gladness. Inspired by Maya Angelou’s iconic poem, the theme invites us into a narrative that is both timeless and timely.

Still speaks volumes. It whispers of endurance in the face of disconnection, disagreement, and division. It reminds us that even in weary moments, even when hope feels distant, we rise anyway. But it also calls us to rise from a place of stillness—grounded and unshaken. In the silence between the noise, we find the clarity of our Unitarian Universalist values. Justice. Interdependence. Equity. Pluralism. From this stillness, our resolve deepens.

We proclaims belonging. It tells each of us: You are not alone. It tells all of us: We are stronger together. In an era that often shouts “every person for themselves,” we choose a different chorus. One that sings of community and collective action. We echo the challenge posed by John F. Kennedy: “If not us, who? If not now, when?” We is not passive. It is powerful.

Rise is the heartbeat of this campaign. To rise is to move—not only upward, but forward. It calls us to lift up those pushed to the margins. It demands that we meet this moment—this congregation, this city, this planet—with courage and care. It encourages us to rise above fear, above fatigue, above the smallness of petty divisions. And like the sun that faithfully crests the horizon, we rise again and again, a light for one another and for the world.

Together, these words tell a story of stubborn gladness—a phrase that reminds us joy can be resistance, and hope can be a choice. This year’s stewardship campaign is not just about sustaining our church—it’s about becoming the kind of community that rises not just in spite of hardship, but because of it.

Still We Rise.

This is the story we’re telling — together!