UCE Congregational Record: December 18, 2020
After spending the last several months gathering information about our congregation and what we are looking for in a new senior minister, the Ministerial Search Committee has completed work on the Congregational Record, a document that honestly and completely describes our congregation. Questions range from a description of Sunday services to UCE’s history to expectations of the senior minister and include the feedback that we received from members fo the congregation in the focus groups, cottage meetings, and congregational survey.
You can read the completed version of the congregational record – all 50 pages of it!
If you have any questions, please email us at ministerialsearchcommittee@ucevanston.org.
In addition, we heard from several of you at our presentation a couple Sundays ago that there are questions over the UUA’s process for considering internal ministerial candidates and why an internal candidate must be considered before opening the search to others. We requested a fuller explanation of the rationale behind this process from the UUA and received the following information. First, no minister in search would want to apply if they know there is an inside candidate. Being a member of the UU Ministers’ Association comes with professional expectations and covenantal relationships—and part of this is not competing with inside candidates. Second, it ensures as level a playing field as possible for anyone to apply: it is unfair, in other words, to place a candidate a congregation doesn’t know against someone they already know and to whom they are close. And finally, such a process ensures the most clarity possible both for the search committee and the congregation. It is better to make a decision on an inside candidate and have a clear rationale either way before moving forward with other candidates; to do otherwise could cause hurt feelings or estranged relationships with a new minister and/or between congregants who wonder what would have happened if the opposite choice had been made. Hopefully these answers clear up some of your remaining questions—again, we welcome any feedback or comments via email!