Institute for the Learning Ministry 2026

Onsite programming will be held at the Hotel Albuquerque – 800 Rio Grande Blvd NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104. Virtual programming will be held through Zoom Events and participants will be sent a personalized link to join.

Worship at the Institute

Worship at the UUMA Institute will offer daily experiences for spiritual nurture, challenge and celebration.  Our team of storytellers, musicians, preachers and ritual artists will guide us with reflections on coming together at the literal and metaphorical tables of our religion, blessing the grief and the sorrow of our lives with imaginative and prophetic messages to sustain our community AND carry our aspirations forward once the institute has ended.  Engaging, embodied and explicitly multi-vocal intentions are woven into the arc of worship that is being designed.

Team members include Aisha Ansano, Emily Conger, Tania Marquez, Matthew Johnson, Verdis LeVar Robinson and Sadie Landsdale along with our featured presenter Kai Cheng Thom.  And as spirit and our time calls for, there will be opportunities for co-creating spontaneous circles, vespers or morning matins.  Stay tuned for more creative conversation and invitation to bless the UUMA Institute with the gifts of grace and gratitude that hold our hearts and minds in care. We are delighted to welcome Matt Meyer and Francisco Ruiz as our Co-Music Directors. Learn more about them and music at the Institute here.

Learning Tracks at the Institute

See detailed descriptions of program tracks

See detailed descriptions of program tracks

Keynote Speaker and Presenter:
Kai Cheng Thom

Kai Cheng Thom, writer, performer, cultural worker and speaker, will be our keynote speaker for our 2026 Institute for the Learning Ministry, with additional roles in worship and in caucus spaces. Broadly, Kai Cheng’s work will explore love as a force for resistance and resilience. Learn more about Kai Cheng Thom here.

I believe that each of us is born to reshape the world.  The prophet and storyteller Octavia Butler has written that we change everything we touch, and everything we touch changes us – and every moment of my life has proven this to be true.  I am a storyteller in the lineage of change-makers, and my message is simple: we need to discover a revolutionary love. I speak this message in poetry, in song and movement, in words delivered straight from my soul.

My teachers and mentors include d’bi young anitafrika, Deanna Smith and Jason Blackbird Selman of the Kalmunity Vibe Collective, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarsinha, and others.  These artists and thought leaders taught me that words matter, that the role of the storyteller is to speak truth to power in service of the people.  Over the past ten years, I have been asked to speak on many topics all over the continent: anti-oppression, trans rights and gendered violence, racism, mental health, conflict resolution and social change.  My views on these topics are shaped by my lived experience, as well as my professional training as a former clinical social worker and therapist.

Institute Planning Team

We are grateful to the members of our Institute Planning Team who are working with our UUMA program staff to imagine, design and help create an Institute that will meet us right where we are and offer a dynamic mix of nurture and growth to help us move our ministries forward. Team members include: Nori Rost, Jen Raffensperger, Lindasusan Ulrich, Kevin Tarsa, Chris Long, Hannah Roberts Villnave, Nicoline Guerrier, Jamili Omar and Joan Javier-Duval.