Search Committee
Charged with finding an ideal minister to guide our congregation on its journey forward.
Our Purpose
Greetings! The purpose of our committee is to engage in a one-year process of discernment and collaboration with the ultimate goal of presenting a candidate for settled minister to you sometime next spring.
From the UUA Settlement Handbook:
No choice is more important to the future of a Unitarian Universalist congregation than its call of a minister. A thorough, uncorrupted, and mutually respectful search process is the essential first step in the hoped-for partnership of lay and ordained leaders. For both minister and congregation, the process is strenuous, exciting, and informative. It can also be frustrating and discouraging. But generations of lay leaders and ministers testify that such a process, followed well, richly repays the time and effort it requires.
Crucial to the quality of the outcome is the quality of the ministerial search committee. Selection is all!—or almost all. This group must invest hundreds of hours in getting to know each other, the congregation, and their ministerial prospects well, so they can make the best choice not for themselves as individuals but for all. No wonder search committee members often become lifelong friends!
Search committees do not simply choose among ministers; they engage with ministers in thoughtful, mutual exploration. For ministry to be effective, both the congregation and the minister must sense a “call,” a felt conviction that this match is right for both. Ministers and search committees are ideally not adversaries in this quest, but partners.
Who We Are
Gail Ringer
Chair
Rhod Zimmerman
Survey Coordinator, Publishing Guru
Renee Lancon
Secretary, Congregational Record Editor
Linda Fitzgerald
Arranger, Negotiating Team Rep.
Karen Turken
Treasurer
Spike Dolomite Ward
Narrative Guru, Packet Co-Editor
Eric Rosloff
IT Guru, Webmaster, Packet Co-Editor
On Transparency & Confidentiality
Confidentiality amongst the members of the committee is vital, but it is important to recognize that confidentiality is not secrecy. The committee will make every effort to publicize the process it is following and how far along it is at every point. At the same time, the committee must keep confidential both the names and the locations of the ministers under consideration and the details of committee business. There are several reasons for the rule of confidentiality:
- Ministers settled in a congregation may not have told their present parishioners that they are contemplating a move. These parishioners are entitled to hear the news from their own minister at the appropriate time. To “leak” a minister’s name can undermine his or her ability to serve the present congregation, and will almost certainly damage a committee’s chances of attracting that potential candidate.
- When the identities of unsuccessful applicants are known, it heightens the competitive aspect of the search process. This hurts collegial feeling among ministers and (when neighboring congregations compete for the same minister) also can create hard feelings among congregations.
- It is harder to resolve differences among the members of a search committee when factions of the congregation are looking over its shoulders. It is better to resolve differences in private.