Why you should attend Beyond Categorical Thinking

This workshop, which will take place on October 13, is an important part of the ministerial and interim search.

Close your eyes and picture your ideal minister. Someone you trust to hear and understand your concerns and support the spiritual life of the congregation. What does that person look like?

We all wonder about who the next minister be: Will they hear me? Will my concerns and needs be met? Will the minister understand what I’m living with? How will the community respond to the new minister?

In thinking of the answers to these questions, we tend to picture an “ideal minister” in our head, someone with a specific age, gender identity, nationality, physical or cognitive ability, race, sexual orientation, etc.

Once this picture is in place, it can be easy to unintentionally exclude ministers who don’t match it. At times, we get caught up in comparing candidates to our mental picture and forget what we hoped for in a minister beyond these characteristics.

To help keep these mental images from getting in the way of a productive ministerial search, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) offers the Beyond Categorical Thinking (BCT) workshop to all congregations involved in the search for a new minister. This program is designed to promote inclusive thinking and prevent unfair discrimination during the search.

UCE will participate in the BCT workshop, led by Jerry Carden and Kathleen Robbins, on Sunday, October 13. The program includes a presentation during both of the Sunday morning services and a three-hour workshop following the 11:00 service with these trained facilitators. Lunch will be provided during the workshop to all participants.

During this workshop, UCE members will have the opportunity to:

learn more about the ministerial search process;
consider their own hopes, expectations, and concerns for a new minister; and
explore how thinking about people in categories can sometimes interfere with choosing the best ministerial candidate.

The search committee invites all congregational leaders, members, and friends to participate in BCT on October 13. This is an important part of both the interim and search process, and this event is a great opportunity for everyone in the congregation to have their voice heard. You are an important part of the search process, and we hope you join us!

To RSVP for the event, please click here or email ministerialsearchcommittee@ucevanston.org

Why you should attend Beyond Categorical ThinkingEmily2019-09-11T18:21:53+00:00

September 15, 2019

“Transition: A Challenge to our Better Selves”– Rev. Karen Gustafson

Change happens. We all know that. Transition is the emotional and psychological aspect of change. Change can be engaged and understood with our minds. Transition is experienced through our feelings and reactions and sometimes breaks open our hearts. Change redefines our circumstances. Transition is an unfolding process of coming to terms with the realities of change. Change is often external, a namable result. Transition is a process of facing ambiguity and discomfort and unfamiliarity. It challenges us to deeper reflection and calls us to be accountable for the ways in which our short term reactivity can lead to long term consequence. UCE is a community awash in change. How might you engage the process of transition in a way that will bring about a more fulfilling future?

September 15, 2019UCE UCE2019-09-18T17:46:53+00:00

September 6, 2019

September 6 2019 Final

September 6, 2019UCE UCE2019-09-09T17:59:24+00:00

September 8th, 2019

We Are From The Water – For our annual Ingathering ritual we come together and gather waters that symbolize our activities during the summer months, the drops of rain that have scattered and regroup to form refreshing, life-giving streams of community. Bring a little container of water – either symbolic or actual – from your travels or staycations or daily activities in the months of longer light. Rev. Karen Gustafson, our Interim Minister, and Rev. Eileen Wiviott, our Acting Senior Minister, will co-lead this service welcoming you to this year of transformation in the life of our congregation. Please join us! This will be a one service, worship for all ages, Sunday at 10 a.m. Immediately following the service, Rev. Karen will lead a discussion of the interim activities planned for this year.

September 8th, 2019UCE UCE2019-09-17T22:37:05+00:00

September 6, 2019: Karen Gustafson

Karen Gustafson, Interim Minister

September 6, 2019

If Interim Ministry is the answer, what are the questions?

UCE will be engaging in a different model of Interim Ministry during the 2019-20 program year. For ten days each month (except December when it will be a shorter time to accommodate the winter holiday juggernaut) I will be present in Evanston. I will be available to individuals and groups engaged in the process of preparing for a new settled minister who can support and enhance the Mission and Vision of UCE into the foreseeable future.

In order to engage the Ministerial Search with integrity you need to be able to present prospective candidates with a clear and honest statement of that Mission and Vision. This statement should reflect a past that has integrated the gifts and legacies of your past ministers and a future that can fearlessly welcome new levels of creative collaboration between minister and congregation.

It is important to build the next part of your congregational history on a foundation of the best that you know of your informing values and goals (Mission) and a shared understanding of what those values and goals would look like when they are actually made manifest in your lives and the world (Vision). The alternative to this is to create a reactive profile of who you are, focused on avoiding the perceived errors of the past and the prevention of future losses.

In the time between September 5 and 15, we will be engaged in conversations that will help us to assess where you are in that process. I sense that we are all awash in questions. On Friday and Saturday, Sept 6 and 7, I will be meeting with the Leadership, Staff and Search Committee to discuss the Interim Plan. On Sunday we will have the service of Ingathering where we will celebrate connections, old and new. Following Worship you are invited to stay for a discussion of insights from the weekend and an opportunity to raise your most pressing questions. Then there will be a lovely lunch!

At each visit, I will be inviting you into conversation about an emergent issue. I am planning to begin with the “low hanging fruit”.

As I have met with your congregational leaders, the specter of ministerial attrition looms large. The departures of ministers as far back as Barbara Pescan and more recently Bret Lortie and last year’s Greg Stewart seem to have given rise to questions and feelings and incomplete conclusions that would be well laid to rest lest they become the source of the reactivity mentioned in paragraph 3 above. To this end, I will host four opportunities for conversation in the coming week. Questions and details are noted elsewhere in this edition.

I look forward to meeting with you to explore both the losses and the legacies of your past ministers and anything else that might concern you as we begin this time together.

Blessings,

Karen

September 6, 2019: Karen GustafsonUCE UCE2019-10-14T20:35:20+00:00

August 30, 2019

August 30, 2019UCE UCE2019-09-03T17:30:01+00:00

August 29, 2019: Karen Gustafson

An Introduction; An Invitation

Karen Gufstafson
Interim Minister

Dear ones,

Karen Gustafson, here. I am the minister who has committed to supporting you and your church staff this year in your continuing effort to present to a prospective settled minister, a clear and honest vision of who you have been, who you are and who you want to be as a congregation.

Eileen Wiviott, as you know, has assumed the role of Acting Senior Minister. I will be with you in Evanston for ten consecutive days each month. During that time, I will be engaging you from the pulpit on two Sundays. During the week, we will interact in structured and casual opportunities to share your experience, your insights and your hopes as you bridge from your past into your future. I will synthesize my observations and mirror them back to you with praises and cautions and suggestions for change. I will be available to the staff by phone and e-mail between visits.

In preparation for this time, I have spent three days in retreat with Rev Eileen where we got to know each other and to form the kind of collegial relationship that will serve us well as leaders during this time of transition. In addition, I am reviewing reports and newsletters and sermons offered by Rev. Greg in the interest of synthesizing and building on last year’s work as much as possible.

I come to you from my “retirement” home near Duluth, Minnesota. I come as a trained interim minister with 30 years of UU parish experience in Duluth, in Madison WI and Minneapolis MN. I come most importantly, I think, as someone who loves this faith, believes in the value and integrity of congregational life and has experienced the power of shared vision and covenant both personally and in the world.

I am not a savior or a magician. My agenda is to facilitate the process of identifying and supporting the healing of hurt places; the elevating and reinforcing of strengths; the resolving of differences through the application of our shared principles; the articulation of a vision of ministry that is sustainable. This is our work together. When it is done, it will be yours.

I am pleased and honored by the trust that your Board has placed in me. This is a different model of interim work. Let’s make it happen!

In trust, Karen

August 29, 2019: Karen GustafsonUCE UCE2019-10-14T20:35:48+00:00

August 23, 2019

August 23, 2019UCE UCE2019-08-27T22:22:59+00:00

September 1st, 2019

Immigrant Stories – Dispelling myths and changing the narrative, sharing stories is a powerful way to cast away the shadows of fear and lies. We consider our stories, the stories of our families, and the journeys that have brought us to this time and place.

September 1st, 2019UCE UCE2019-09-17T22:35:43+00:00

August 23rd Capital Campaign Q&A

Q. When will I be contacted about making my gift to the Capital Campaign?

A. If you haven’t already heard from the Capital Campaign Leadership Team, you will receive a letter and a brochure in the mail from them between now and early October.

Because we believe it’s important to be in conversation with each other about this important initiative, we have taken a phased-in approach to talk with our members. Given the size of our congregation, it’s going to take a while to reach everyone … as you can imagine!

Your ideas, input, and generosity are essential to the success of the campaign, and we are eager to hear your thoughts. Decisions about which projects will be funded will be guided by your feedback as well as consultation with the board.

August 23rd Capital Campaign Q&AUCE UCE2019-08-22T17:16:53+00:00

Karen Gustafson, Interim Minister

An Introduction; An Invitation

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Evanston

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