MSR Guide - Unitarian Universalist Association

36
The search committee should be an engine of congregational conversation, not the
engine pulling the multicultural train: risk of separateness from the congregation
Resources available:
• Readiness survey (integrated in search committee survey Earlier availability
for interim minister’s use)
• Beyond Categorical Thinking (Search Committee as a whole needs to
complete application)
• JUUST Change Consultancy
• Jubilee 1 and 2
• “Now Is the Time” DVD/Discussion Guide
5. Cottage meetings are as important in the self-survey process as surveys. Listen your
congregation into the kind of clarity you need to reflect them in the search process.
6. Craft the history of the church—its needs, wants, weaknesses, and its relationships to
its ministers—as honestly as you can.
7. Create the profile of the minister you desire. To do so, interpret the survey results,
don’t simply summarize them. It is very easy to describe a minister who can leap tall
buildings and walk on water. The challenge is to state what may not be of greatest
importance. For assistance in accomplishing a “differential diagnosis” of the mode of
minister your congregation may best benefit from, visit “Conducting an Effective
Ministerial Search Survey” at http://www.action-research.com/uua/minsurvey.html
8. Ministers will indicate interest in you based on everything they can learn about you,
from every source, accurate and inaccurate. It is thus most important to be disclosive
(but not confessional) in your CR, and to indicate your willingness to discuss
absolutely everything about your congregation with ministers in whom you become
interested.
D. Church Packet
1. Show samples.
2. Can range from simple to pricey, plain to artsy, black and white to use of color.
Audios and videos are sometimes used, and Internet-based packets are common.
What best expresses your congregation
3. Settlement Handbook has clear instructions. Think about what a minister would be
interested in seeing and knowing What are your strengths and assets What are
your “growing edges,” things to work on
4. Make it effective. Sell the church. This is your first impression. But be honest. (Press
ministers to be honest too--they're good at first impressions.)
5. You can involve others from the congregation in this effort.
6. Start getting your color photos as early as possible, knowing what you want to show
and having someone who knows how to take good pictures involved.
7. Work out the details of producing and sending your packet and the associated costs.
Plan on producing a dozen copies at least. The exclusively online or on CD packet
meets with mixed results among ministers.