Perspectives from the MSC

A quick message from your Ministerial Search Committee

We’re happy to share that we're in the midst of welcoming pre-candidates to Bloomington for their interviews and time for deep discernment with us. We are grateful to all of you who are honoring our request for privacy at the church on Saturdays to allow this process to happen in a manner that respects the confidentiality of the process.
And a reminder to please mark your calendars for Candidating Week, April 21-28, when there will be many opportunities to meet and get to know the candidate. Please be at the church on April 28th for a special congregational meeting after service when we will vote to call the candidate.

With gratitude, your Ministerial Search Committee: Ann, Christine, Denise, Mary Beth, Michael, Olaya, and Von

Greetings from your Ministerial Search Committee. We’re very happy to share that we received a strong list of applicants in response to our congregational record. Through mutual discernment and interviews, three wonderful pre-candidates have emerged. The committee will meet with those pre-candidates in February and March. Out of care for the pre-candidates' existing congregational relationships, this part of the process remains confidential; we won't have much to share with you in this phase, but you can trust we'll be busy!
We will announce a candidate in April. Remember to mark your calendars for Candidating Week, April 21-28, when there will be many opportunities to meet and get to know the candidate. And please do be here on April 28th for a special congregational meeting after service when we will vote to call the candidate.
Finally, a big part of the Search Committee's job is describing our congregation to interested ministers, both in the Congregational Record and in interviews. As we continue this work, we want to say thank you, to all of you, for making UUCB a congregation that's easy to describe with love and pride. Ministers are excited to learn about this congregation, and we get to tell them about it--thanks for making this a joyful task!

Your Ministerial Search Committee: Ann, Christine, Denise, Mary Beth, Michael, Olaya, and Von

Thank you! Over 200 of you completed the Congregational Survey and over 120 of you attended one of the twelve Cottage Meetings we hosted. Your time and input has been incredibly valuable in helping us paint a picture that captures the joys and longings of our congregation.

You may now find our summaries of the survey and the meetings on our website:

Congregational Survey Summary

Since we do not need to think alike to love alike, you can imagine the wonderful and diverse thinking we heard. Our strength as a congregation is akin to a quilt with many different perspectives forming a colorful picture. If there is a central image, it would be Sunday services and the community around those events, which are clearly very important to a majority of us. What we each seek from that image varies: challenging sermons, moving music, community hour, inspiration from religions around the world, intergenerational connections, addressing current events, exploration, and so forth. And we surround our focus on Sunday service with various passions: choir, social justice, activism, religious education, Chalice Circles, Humanist/Freethinker discussions, the Bazaar and other fundraising, committee work, Fellowship dinners and other gatherings for community, and more.

What’s next? We have completed our Congregational Record, a deeper description of our congregation's history and identity that will serve to inform ministers about us. The Congregational Record is now published on the UUA ministerial search site for ministers to view. Please tell any ministers you know that we are in search, and ask them to tell their colleagues. Any UU minister will know what that means and how to find us. We will start interviewing applicants in January and hope to see as many applicants as possible.

In February and March we will continue our discernment, protecting the confidentiality of our applicants, and then the week of April 21st is candidating week. Our goal is to introduce to you our candidate minister and have them visit us that week. They will preach on both Sundays and meet with the congregation in between. Please be around and available that week, especially the afternoon of April 28th for the special congregational meeting and vote to call the candidate.

You can review all the steps of the Ministerial Search process on our Timeline page.

Again, thank you for your support. It has been a pleasure for us to get to know so many of you more deeply in this process and we’re honored to be working on your behalf.

Your Ministerial Search Committee:

Ann, Christine, Denise, Mary Beth, Olaya, Michael, and Von

There is a lot going on right now! We continue to hold Cottage Meetings and hope you take advantage of one of these opportunities to share your thoughts with us. The latest schedule can always be found on the UUCB website and outside of Fellowship Hall. And thank you for your survey responses - over 200 of you completed the survey and we’re working hard to process those responses. Stay tuned for the results!

The Ministerial Search Committee invites the whole congregation to a special Breaking Barriers, Building Beliefs (B4) workshop on Saturday November 11th, from 10am to 2pm, at UUCB.

Participants are welcome to gather at 9:30am for socialization ahead of the workshop. There will be a break for lunch. Please bring your lunch. We’ll have snacks available as well. Childcare will be provided.

B4 workshop participants will:

• Consider the hopes, expectations, and concerns they have for a new minister
• Learn more about the ministerial search process, and
• Explore how creating categories and putting people in them can interfere with choosing the best candidate.

To register: Please register online here by Thursday, November 9.

As part of the registration process, you will be asked to complete a pre-workshop survey.

The workshop will be led by Rev. Patrice K. Curtis (she/they), UUA Transformational Interim Ministries Director. Patrice will also be a special guest in our pulpit on Sunday, November 12th.

Patrice collaborates with and supports interim ministers and Directors of Children’s Ministries in amplifying and practicing diversity, equity, and inclusion within congregations, and in disrupting unhealthy patterns that make Beloved Community difficult to realize. Before the UUA in 2020, Patrice served four congregations and as Program Director with UU Justice Ministry of California.

Before ministry, Patrice served on several non-profit boards; taught marketing research to lower income entrepreneurs; and was a US government foreign affairs program and policy analyst focusing on countries afflicted by civil conflict and climate disasters. Patrice is a life-long humanist, with spiritual practices rooted in mindfulness and meditation, and is currently focused on Tibetan Buddhism.

Please complete the Congregational Survey by October 15!

In case you don't know: this congregation is in the process of seeking a new settled minister. Reverend Connie Grant, our Interim Minister, will be with us until next August, when the new minister arrives. This fall, the search committee's task is to learn as much as possible about what this congregation wants and needs in our next minister. Our Congregational Survey on ministry is out now, and ready for your responses.

Fill out the survey online

Some questions we have heard…

• Who should fill out this survey? We want to hear from everyone who considers themselves part of this congregation! Members, friends, and staff; newcomers and long-timers. If you're here every week, if we haven't seen you in a while, or anything in between, we need to hear from YOU.
• What if I already filled it out? Thank you! We've heard from nearly 120 people so far.
• If I haven't filled it out, what's the deadline? October 15.
• What if I can't fill it out online? Paper copies of the survey are available in the church office, or ask a Search Committee member.
• What should I do if someone in our community hasn’t heard about the survey? If you know someone who hasn't gotten the survey, please share the link with them, or let us know who they are—this will really help us get input from as many people in our congregation as possible.

Your response to the survey is important. It helps the search committee and possible ministers understand who we are as a congregation, and what we want and need in a settled minister. Survey responses will also shape the questions we ask during focus groups and cottage meetings in October and November, when we hope you will join us for more open and in-depth conversation.

If you have a question not answered in this article, you can contact the Ministerial Search Committee anytime at search@uubloomington.org. And you can find us every Sunday after the service in the hallway outside of Fellowship Hall, along with a timeline of the search process and updates on our work.

Thank you for your participation in this valuable search process!

Denise Breeden-Ost, Chair of the UUCB Ministerial Search Committee.

Greetings from Denise Breeden-Ost, Chair of the UUCB Ministerial Search Committee. We’re ramping up and we want to engage with you this fall! How can you stay informed about what we’re doing and how can you connect with us? Thank you for asking…

First, as I expect most of you know, our congregation is in the process of seeking a new settled minister. Our interim lead minister, Rev. Connie Grant, will be with us until the new minister starts in August 2024. The Ministerial Search Committee is charged with finding a good match for our congregation among the ministers who are seeking a congregation. This is a long and careful process and after our orientation retreat last Sunday, we're wading into it in earnest.

Over the course of this fall, much of our task is to understand as much as possible about what this congregation wants and needs from a new minister. We'll be sending out a survey to all members and friends; search committee members will meet with different groups in the congregation; and we'll host open meetings where anyone can come and share their thoughts. Everything we hear will be brought back to the Search Committee and will guide our work: both as we present our congregation to potential ministers, which happens near the end of this semester; and in our discernment process after ministers apply in the New Year.

How do you find out more? How can you participate? Three things:

• Check out the display in the hallway outside Fellowship Hall by the childcare rooms. You'll find photos and bios of Search Committee members, along with a timeline of the whole Search process showing where we are now. Other updates about the search will be posted there too
• Read your UUCB Friday Update and Perspectives Newsletter! We’ll regularly have articles and events reminders.

• Talk to us! We're relying on you to share your questions, your needs, your wants, your concerns, and your dreams for this congregation. This includes taking part in the Congregational Survey, showing up for listening sessions, and talking with individual committee members. You can find us by our green-lettered name tags during Community Hour or can reach us anytime via email to search@uubloomington.org.

I'm excited by the energy, openness, and commitment I see in every member of this committee. All of us look forward to sharing this journey with all of you.

Denise Breeden-Ost, Chair of the UUCB Ministerial Search Committee

Christine Banister, Denise Breeden-Ost, Olaya Fernández Gayol, Ann Kamman, Michael McGregor, Mary Beth O'Brien, and Von Welch are honored to begin the work of finding a settled Lead Minister for our congregation. Since being elected by the congregation on June 4, we've been learning about the Search process and getting to know each other. We'll have an orientation retreat with the UU Transitions Office in late August, and you'll be hearing a lot from us as we move into the fall semester.

One of our first tasks after the retreat will be crafting and sending out a Congregational Survey, to gather the perspectives of everyone in the congregation. As we move on into the fall, we'll be creating many opportunities to connect with and listen to you, the members and friends of UUCB, including in-person and virtual small-group gatherings. Please participate in this process and share your point of view! Hearing from everyone will help us understand as clearly as possible the many facets of who we are as a congregation and what we're looking for in our ministry--an essential part of searching for a new minister.

Photos and bios of all Search Committee members will be up soon, both at church and on the website. Please feel free to talk to any of us at coffee hour or wherever you find us--we're listening, and we're taking notes! You can also email questions and thoughts directly to the full Search Committee, at search@uubloomington.org (Mike McGregor will be responding to emails during August).

We look forward to the coming months of listening, discernment, and collaboration with you, our congregation.