Christine Purcell is the Transitions Program Manager on the Congregational Life field staff team. She supports governing board and search team members in their ministerial search processes. She is a member of the Congregational Life Leadership Team and the Review Team. She works in close partnership with UUA regional staff, the Transitions Office, Ministries and Faith Development, the Office of Church Staff Finance, and the IT office to optimize the ministry search process for good matches between ministers and congregations.

She began working as a consultant for our Association's Southeast District in 2011. As Southern Region staff, she held the portfolios for small congregations, staffing analysis, strategic planning, and ministerial transitions. In the spirit of cross-regional collaboration, our Congregational Life Leadership Team gave her the opportunity to hold the transitions portfolios for all five regions in 2018. This change gave her the ability to focus on her favorite aspect of field staff work--supporting congregational leaders in the ministerial transition process.

Her educational background is in sociology, psychology, and criminal justice. Before joining the UUA staff team, she worked as a workshop facilitator at a military counseling center in Sardinia, Italy, as a corporate trainer, and as a UU congregational and cluster leader. She is certified in Critical Incident Stress Management (crisis response) and as a Red Cross emergency shelter manager. She is an Our Whole Lives facilitator, as well.

She lives in central Connecticut, but feels like she lives on Zoom! In her spare time, she enjoys sci-fi, cooperative and strategy games, training dogs, traveling with her family, and playing guitar, bass ukulele, and baritone ukulele.