Happy New Year!

With all the new beginnings we will be experiencing before too long, this seems like an appropriate time to talk about the Board’s second goal for the year. If you will recall, our number one goal has to do with keeping in communication with the congregation and various committees and task forces. Our number two goal involves our search for and selection of an interim minister.

There appears to be a lot of interest in the process for hiring an interim minister, and rightly so! The process is set by the UUA, so we will be following their guidelines. The Board appointed an Interim Search Committee in October. This body has already been meeting and will begin preparing in earnest for the search as early as February. Those ministers who are interested in an interim position will be posting their applications on line in April 2019. The Search Committee will interview candidates and make a recommendation to the Board and congregation. Our interim minister probably will begin his/her ministry in late August 2019.

We are looking, most likely, at a two-year interim period. It usually takes that amount of time for a congregation to grow into and own its identity, independent of both positive and negative feelings about the ministry that has come to an end. Interim ministers are trained to help the congregation move from one settled minister to the next.

I asked Maureen Killoran, who served as an interim minister for many years and was a member of our congregation, for her thoughts. She shared the following:

“It is highly recommended to start out with the intention of a two-year interim ministry, particularly after a long settlement like you’ve had with Jim. There are particular and very normal aspects of transition that require a bit of a longer time to address, and also it allows the congregation a bit of reflection room before proceeding with active search for your next settled minister. There is clear documentation that a two-year interim correlates with congregations having a more successful search for their next settled minister.”

In the spirit of Love,

Jan
Board President