Ministerial Transitions

Serving with Grace Lay Leadership as a Spiritual Practice

By Erik Walker Wikstrom
From Skinner House Books

Discover how to experience congregational work as an integrated element in a fully rounded spiritual life.

Buy This Book

The health and vitality of our congregations depends in part on a good fit between a congregation and their minister. The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) helps to connect ministers searching for a position with congregations which want to find a minister.

The UUA offers information and resources to help congregants, ministers, compensation consultants, and regional staff throughout the search process for all types of ministers: assistant, contract, developmental, interim, or settled.

Questions About Materials or the Search Process

Please include your full name, your congregation’s full name (no acronyms), city, and state in all correspondence with the UUA Transitions Office and regional staff.

  • Transitions Office: Rev. Keith Kron, Director; Amy Szen, Administrator; Rev. Patrice Curtis, Transformational Interim Ministries Director; and Christine Purcell, Transitions Program Manager (transitions@uua.org)
  • Congregational Life field staff support, all regions: Christine Purcell, Transitions Program Manager (cpurcell@uua.org)

Announcements

All ministers and search teams in consideration for settled and developmental ministry matches should submit their rankings to the transitions office on or by 27 March so we can let everyone know about their best match alignment for offer date (30 March).

This year, as an experiment, we are asking everyone to do this using a form. We are doing this in order to ask an additional question about the discernment process. We would like to know if search teams are checking in with regional staff, provided/initial references, and/or developed references and if ministers are checking in with regional staff, interim/transitional ministers, assistant/associate/community ministers who are currently serving with the congregation, and/or ministers who served with the congregation in the past. We will update the search handbooks with this updated request for next cycle if this process yields useful information.

To share your rankings with the transitions office, please use the appropriate form below:

Transitional Ministry Annual Seminar - April 24 - 28th, 2023

Visit Transitional Ministry Seminar 2023 for schedule information and registration.

Congregational Leaders and Ministers

Regarding All Active and Upcoming Searches

  1. Only use the old settlement system for accessing historical information. The new Ministry Search system is in use!
  2. Congregational leaders, once you have been in touch with regional staff and/or the Transitions Program Manager about the types of ministry search which would be best or are available to your congregation, send an email to transitions@uua.org to initiate your search. Include your congregation’s full name, city, and state, and the name and email for your contact person.
  3. To view opportunity listings for ministers, religious educators, musicians, and other congregational staff, please visit the MinistrySearch Jobs Board. To post a position on the jobs board for non-ordained staff, use the Job Board Listing Request form.
  4. Congregations seeking or offering staff for collaboration may also post to the Congregational Collaboration Board.

These documents are essential reading for both lay leaders and ministers:

Congregational Leaders

Resources here are of particular use to lay leaders shepherding their congregation through the ministerial transition.

Ministers

These resources are useful for ministers in the midst of or considering a transition.

Archived Resources