Ministerial Search Committee Updates: What's Next?
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:
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
