Newsletter: Jan. 28, 2014: We Have Our Three Pre-Candidates!

 

Newsletter: January 28, 2014

We Have Our Three Pre-Candidates!

Your Ministerial Search Committee (MSC) is excited to announce that we have selected three “Pre-candidates” (semi-finalists) for the position of Minister of our church. We have scheduled a weekend-long interview between the MSC and each of our three Pre-candidates. These three “Pre-candidating Weekends” will unfold during February and early March.

We had a strong pool of applicants, both in quantity and quality. As you know from earlier Newsletters, we used the results of our Listening Sessions and the Congregational Survey (see link in last week’s Newsletter) to prepare a seventeen-page job-posting, the Congregational Record (see link below). Twenty-one ministers responded to our Congregational Record by sending us their equivalent ministerial document, the Ministerial Record. Eleven applicants were then invited to exchange further documentation, which they and we posted on limited-access websites. We were thus able to access not only written material but also recordings and videos of services and sermons. Next came 75-minute Skype interviews with six of the ministers. From those six, we have now selected our three “Pre-candidates,” one of whom we hope will be our next settled minister.

In the weekends ahead, each of our Pre-candidates will come to Worcester, tour the area, engage in intense and wide-ranging discussions with the MSC, and lead a service in a “neutral pulpit”—a church where neither we nor they are known. Because the ministers may not yet have notified their home congregations that they are in search, this stage of the process must be confidential. Therefore, members of our congregation other than the MSC cannot be involved.

All our applicants bring unique strengths along with human realities. They offer varying kinds of expertise, professional experience, life skills, and spiritual gifts. As a committee, we are called upon to reflect together on those qualities and to evaluate them according to the criteria you laid down at the Listening Sessions and in the Survey. We feel privileged to have been called by you to do that. We are gratified to have identified a particularly gifted group of Pre-candidates. We will continue to take seriously the responsibility you have placed in us.

Next week, we’ll describe in more detail what happens during a minister’s Pre-candidating Weekend!

To see our Congregational Record, click https://sites.google.com/a/lay.firstunitarian.com/search/1stUCR.pdf

Ministerial Search Moves Into High Gear!   

(Newsletter: Thursday, January 23, 2014)
 

by the Ministerial Search Committee

Your Ministerial Search Committee (MSC) is now in active conversation with the unusually large number of ministers who've applied for our position. This week, we've been conducting lengthy Skype interviews with our top choices. By this weekend, we hope to extend invitations to three applicants to be our "Pre-Candidates." Each "Pre-Candidate" will be invited to spend a weekend with the MSC, including preaching an entire service in a nearby church. The rules of the process are that only the MSC, not the entire congregation, will engage with the Pre-Candidates. The idea is to protect the relationship between the ministers and their existing congregations. These procedures also protect the discernment process from premature lobbying. So where do you come in? Well, you already have ... and you steadily will. Our discernment is based on your input. Your Listening Sessions, and your Survey, produced all the documents that introduced our church to potential applicants and described the minister we seek. Your input also guided us as we crafted our interview questions and as we reflect on what we're learning about the ministers.  In April, the "Candidate"--the one minister we ultimately recommend to you--will spend ten days with the congregation, including two Sunday services in our pulpit. Afterwards, it is--literally--your "call": You will decide, at a special congregational meeting, whether our church calls this Candidate or whether it does not. But we don't want you to take all this "on faith." This week, we are releasing to you the entire Congregational Survey (see link below). Next week, we'll do the same with the Congregational Record (our translation of the Survey data into a lengthy job posting). Your thoughtful and deep participation in the Listening Sessions and Survey shaped our understanding of your interests and preferences. We hope we are representing our congregation accurately and fully. We're grateful to you and we thank you. To see our Survey, click here.

Newsletter: January 7, 2014

Search Process: We Have A List!

by the Ministerial Search Committee

Happy New Year! Our two most recent articles informed you about "our competition" (other churches seeking a new settled minister) and the limited-access website we've developed that takes our applicants on a tour of our church community. If you missed these updates during the Christmas shuffle, you can access them by clickinghere.  Meanwhile, things are moving forward. On January 2, the UUA's Ministerial Transitions Office forwarded a list of applicants for our position. This is our firstlook at those ministers who've examined our congregational materials and decided that they're interested in us. For reasons we'll explain, we cannot share details at this time about the individuals on the list. What we can tell you is that the response to our materials is robust, and we feel encouraged and gratified by it.The main reason we can't share details about our applicants is that it's premature for most of them to tell their current parishioners that they are contemplating a move. Those parishioners are entitled to hear the news from their own minister at the appropriate time. Leaking a minister's identity prevents the minister from handling this matter with the discretion and sensitivity it deserves. While the applicants' identities must be confidential, the Committee remains eager to share information with you about the search process itself. Please visit the MSC's table, timeline, and bulletin board in the Bancroft Room before or after church, or visit our blog to re-read our articles. The next three weeks will be an intense time as we review the applicants and begin a round of lengthy telephone interviews. We'd also like to remind you to reserve Sunday afternoon, January 19, for our "Beyond Categorical Thinking" workshop on inclusivity in our ministerial search. For details, click here. Lunch and childcare will be provided!

Late-Dec. Newsletters: Updates on the Search Process

 

In case you missed these two updates during the Christmas shuffle, here they are again.

The Search Process: What We’ve Been Working On (Newsletter, Dec. 17)

On December 1, the UUA unveiled the Congregational Record (CR) of every congregation that is searching for a new settled minister. (The CR, you’ll recall, is a 17-page profile of our congregation and the minister we seek.) As of December 1, all ministers who seek a position could access the CRs of all churches with openings.

On January 3, we learn which ministers have decided to apply. Ministers may apply to multiple congregations. We face substantial competition. 51 congregations nationwide are “in search” for full-time ministers who’d start this August. Eight of those openings are in Massachusetts. Three other attractive full-time openings are nearby. Six additional nearby churches have part-time openings. And 39 additional churches, including 7 in the area, have already announced full-time openings for the following year.

While the ministers are doing their due diligence this month (reading CRs), your MSC has undertaken its next big project: creating the Congregational Packet (CP). You won’t be surprised to learn that what once would have been an actual mailed “info packet” is nowadays a website. Our CP website is laid out as a walking tour of our church, its activities, its people, and its surroundings. Access will be limited to those ministers whom we choose from the January applicants.

And what happens after that? We’ll tell you next time!

Process Update (Part Two): As the Calendar Turns (Newsletter, Dec. 23)

Last week, we took stock of where we are in our process of seeking a new settled minister. It has been a busy autumn. We moved from the Listening Sessions to the Survey, using them to develop our Congregational Record (a lengthy profile of our congregation and the minister we seek). This week, we passed another milestone: We finished developing our Congregational Packet. In these Tech-savvy times, mailed “info-packets” have given way to limited-access websites. Ours takes our prospective minister on a walking tour of our church, its activities, its people, and its place in the community.

Now, winter is upon us, and as we speak, prospective ministers are accessing our Congregational Record, along with that of all other congregations that have openings. Ministers have one month to evaluate their options and to decide which congregations (plural) they’re interested in.

Next month, the rubber meets the road. On January 3, each minister who is interested in us will send us, and any other churches, his/her Ministerial Record (MR). Your Search Committee will then review all the MRs sent to us, and select the ministers to whom we’ll offer initial telephone (Skype) interviews. These intense interviews will begin in mid-January. Afterwards, we will assess all the interviews and come up with our semifinalists (known in this process as “Pre-Candidates”).

We’ll keep you updated as the process unfolds!