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‘‘Everyone who drove up here said it looks like home, it looks like where we belong,” said the Rev. Amy Russell.

The home — a 34-foot wide cedar yurt — will seat about 90. Eleven windows provide views of a nearby home with goats, a horse and cow and the park. A skylight adds to the ambiance.

‘‘We’ve been waiting almost three years for this to happen,” said Boyds resident Sara Hull, president of the congregation. ‘‘Now there’s this renewed energy and excitement.”

The cedar yurt arrived in 2005 from Oregon Yurtworks, a 23-year-old Eugene, Ore.-based company. The yurt is a modernized version of the circular tents used by Mongolian nomads in Central Asia.

‘‘It immediately sounded intriguing to me because of the round shape,” Hull said. ‘‘We are seated clustered closer together. There is something more communal about it than a long-rectangular church.”

A 1,500-square-foot house reminiscent of an alpine lodge already sits on the secluded plot of land, which boasts trails leading to the neighboring Seneca Creek State Park. The house will hold the church’s education classes and youth group meetings, board meetings and main offices.

Church members did much of the renovations to bring the house up to county code, including adding bathrooms, removing a fireplace and adding walls that meet fire code, Russell said.

One of the principals of Unitarian Universalism is ‘‘respect for the interdependent web of all existence.”

‘‘That speaks to us not only for the different relationships that different people have, but also for different animals in the environment,” Hull said.

They used shredded blue jeans for insulation, installed radiant bamboo flooring and used environmentally friendly stain on the siding. The yurt’s many windows take advantage of passive solar heating.

‘‘We are very environmentally aware,” Russell said. ‘‘We have a lot of members who feel we should be green.”

For years, the 11-year-old congregation has met in a rented space at the Germantown Masonic Lodge on Boland Farm Road.

The Germantown church formed in 1995 after members from the River Road, Cedar Lane, Rockville, Frederick and Seneca Valley congregations met to discuss their vision of a new upcounty group.Unitarian Universalist congregations believe their role is to assist people in their spiritual journeys, not to provide them with set beliefs.

Hull said that is what attracted her family to the congregation.

‘‘WE were really looking for a place that would help us teach [our children] about diverse religious traditions,” Hull said. ‘‘From the minute we walked in the door we had people welcoming us and embracing us. There was just this coherence and warmth to the group. I still remember that first experience; it just clicked.”

Now that the group has a home, it has space to host programs and events and reach out to more potential members.

She is looking forward to hosting coffeehouse type events with folk music.

‘‘It gives us stability. It gives us a place where we can start focusing on looking outward. Now that we’ve got our home we can implement our social justice programs, reaching out to the community to let them know we’re here.”

Opening Celebration

When: 10:30 a.m. Sunday

Where: 16913 Germantown Road

Call 301-540-0575 for more information.

A spring festival is planned for 4-8 p.m. April 21. For more, visit www.scuu.org or e-mail office@scuu.org.