Rev. Erica Baron 0:06 So we are going to be talking this hour. Darrick Jackson and I will be talking, I'll do more formal introductions in a minute. And then next hour, Sarah Schurr. And I will be talking. Both hours are about the experience of ministers and part time ministry and some of the questions about that. So just so y'all know. It's just gonna be me all the time. Rev. Darrick Jackson 0:32 Not a bad thing Rev. Erica Baron 0:53 all right, we're gonna give people one more minute. And then I'll be all for my own stuff. Since I'm recording, I should probably put this in speak review. Actually, maybe I can be even fancier. Nope, I can't. Okay. Thanks, Megan. All right, it's 2:05. So I'm gonna get formal. So hi, everyone. I am Erica Baron. I am on the staff of the New England Region for the UUA. Before that, I served in three different ministries that ranged from quarter time to full time. So I was quarter time and quarter time at one point, I was halftime in quarter time, at one point, I was three quarter time at one point, I have both increased and decreased the amount of ministry I'm in in a given congregation. So I've done all that kind of all over the place stuff. And my co host for this hour is Darrick Jackson, who is one of the co-directors of the UU ministers Association. Darrick, going to let you talk a little bit about your experience. Rev. Darrick Jackson 2:20 Yes. So my parish experience has been serving in two congregations part time, one was a quarter time and the other was a third time, and I did both them at the same time. So I learned a lot about the navigating part time ministry and what works, what, what was the struggle and and as my worldview, may I hear stories from part time ministers as well. So I'm bringing all of that into our conversation today. Rev. Erica Baron 2:54 Cool, thanks, Darrick. Um, so we want to start by talking about, we're going to talk a little bit and then we're gonna let you ask questions and talk to us. So we want to begin by acknowledging that some people, some ministers are more likely to serve in part time ministry at some point in your careers than others. So there are sort of three things that we want to acknowledge here. One is that there is a shift happening in the world about the way congregations are functioning and structured. And so we believe, at least I do, I think Darrick and I do, I don't know, I'm not necessarily speaking larger for more than the two of us. But we believe that it's going to be increasingly likely that new ministers or or longtime ministers, as we go forward in time, you it's going to be increasingly likely that you will be in a part time ministry, because that's like the way the world is headed. I can say a lot more about structurally why that's true, if you want me to in the q&a. I'm obviously people who have a particular love for small congregations, as I do, may serve in part time ministries just because that's what generally happens in small congregations. And also specifically in our UUA system, when congregations choose their own ministers, there's all sorts of bias built into that process. And therefore, ministers who experienced marginalization of various kinds are more likely to serve part time at some point or perhaps for their entire careers. So what we mean by ministers who experience marginalization are BIPOC ministers, trans ministers, disabled ministers, and in this particular, like thread of how bias shows up in Unitarian Universalism. In my experience, young women in ministry also will be more likely to serve in part time congregations So we just want to acknowledge that reality that obviously, at least obvious to me that those biases are not good. And we want to continually expand the vision of who congregations imagine when they think about ministry. But also at the at the moment, more marginalized ministers tend to be in more precarious positions, and those tend to include some part time. Yes, thank you, Megan. BIPOC means black, indigenous and or people of color. So if you're in one of those marginalized categories while we are working to make it less true, it would be helpful to at least think about what part time ministry might look like. Um, so, Darrick, um, let me turn it over to you and ask, why would somebody potentially consider part time ministry even if they had a choice to do full time ministry? Rev. Darrick Jackson 6:02 right. But there, there are some really good things about part time ministry, and I think are some of them were actually covered by our presenter today as well. But part time ministry allows you to have a multiplicity, have multiplicity in your call. So if you if you have interest in looking at ministry in a broader sphere, besides just in the congregation, part time ministry allows you to engage the parish work that may be close to your heart, but also to be if you be a part time chaplain, if there's a chaplaincy works for you, or if you have an artist, and art is your ministry, or social justice does your ministry that you can develop those things alongside the parish aspect of your ministry and you can hold both, instead of having to be in a space of having to choose one or the other. So it gives you some different options to explore what ministry is like. It also allows you to have a bit more control over your your time, in terms of how you use your time. And so if you are if you have if you have family needs, whether that is for with younger family or older family, that you are trying to care for a part time ministry is a great way of being able to stay in ministry, while still take doing the family caretaking, that you need to do as well. It's part time ministry also is an opportunity to help congregate congregations really bring out some of the best in a congregation because they are, because you're part time, they are required to take a bigger role in the life of the congregation. And you can have an opportunity to see what a what the lay members of the congregation can actually do and help them have a better understanding of what the role of, what the what the role of ministry is, and all that all that entails. And it gives you a kind of a space to focus even on the areas that call you more. So you know if you if you're a preacher, but you really are not much of an administrator, have been part time ministry, you can make some choices to say I'm going to preach, and I'll' do some pastoral care. But the congregation stays in charge of the administration, or if you're actually you love administration, you can actually have more of that administrative or but you can create, in many ways the ministry as you know, in conversation with the congregation that could actually bring out both of your strengths and gifts in ministry. That's a good way now. Rev. Erica Baron 6:27 Yeah, just to give an example of one of those from my life. When I was serving a congregation full time, that was we had this sort of happy convergence of circumstance that the congregation was struggling to afford full time ministry, and I was about to have a child. So we decided together that I would go down to three quarter ministry when I came back from parental leave, so that I could have a little bit more space So for parenting and the congregation could, you know, afford three quarter time ministry better than full time ministry. In that particular situation, we had really careful, thorough conversations with the congregation about specifically with the board, but then communicated to the whole congregation, about what quarter time I was letting go of this is not like, we're just going to do three quarters of everything, right? Because that does not work. So we talked about like, which things am I going to let go of? And that worked pretty well. Because in that congregation, we had done that conversation. So intentionally, so highly recommend that. And that sort of brings us into our next topic that we want to just accept. I saw a question go by in the chat. Let me just look at it for a second. Okay, so Mike says, I'm wondering about the possibility of more roles specialization, and the idea of congregations bringing on multiple part time specialists, rather than or in addition to a full time lead minister. Yeah, Mike, that's great. Um, let's, um, that's a really, we could talk about that for an hour. So I'm going to come back to that when we get to our more open discussion time. But yeah, thank you. That's a great question. Um, so what are some things that you might want to know when you're entering part time ministry? The first one I just sort of talked about a bit, which is there is a saying that I hear every time I talk to a group of ministers about part time ministry, which is that part time ministry is full time ministry with part time pay. And I have to say, friends, colleagues, that there are two sides to why that myth and practice perpetuates. One side is congregational expectations of full time ministry, even if their minister is halftime. But the other is ministers being willing to work full time for halftime pay. And I would say friends, colleagues Beloved's we really need to hold that line, because that won't change unless we actually are willing to hold that line. And so setting the boundaries around your time is a really important part of sustainable part time ministry. That would also that also means when I say like halftime, right, that doesn't necessarily mean 20 hours a week, every single week, right? Because that's not how congregations work. So you may very well have a week where you're doing two memorial services and the Sunday worship, and there happened to be a fundraiser on Friday night, right? And you work 60 hours that week. The way to make that still a part time ministry is to take that time back from subsequent weeks, right? So it doesn't necessarily have to be exactly the right number of hours every single week, but average it out over time and keep track of that carefully. Because like nobody else can really do that for you. Because like they don't know exactly how much time you're working. So I used to actually keep it a calendar in my office, that I would write down the, you know, time, approximate time. I think I did it in 15 minute increments, just to make the math easier, but you could even do it in half hour, whatever, that I had worked for each of my congregations every day, and made sure that it averaged out over time. That's how I did that. Other people have different systems. I want to see there was something else that went by in the chat. Well, there are a part this is Barbara Threep, where there are part time positions in all sorts of churches. If you want to serve in rural congregations, the likelihood of it being part time greatly increases. Yes, very true. As you know, serving two congregations in Vermont and one. Yes. Okay. So, Derek, do you want to talk about expectations of the congregation? Rev. Darrick Jackson 13:59 Yes. And when I was, I'm grateful that when I first started doing a part time congregation, I first reached out to the congregations they really recognized that they were offering a part time ministry. And so they came to me as we're negotiating, and they, they said to me, we don't want to take advantage of you. So let's figure out exactly how we what part time is going to mean for this ministry. And that was an I that was I was a new Minister, that was not something that was in my mind to even approach the congregation with, but they that was really helpful. So when I added on the second congregation, I went to that congregation and said, so let's so now we're talking about quarter time. So what actual tasks are am I to do in this ministry? Because I can't do all the tasks. And as Erica says, you know, it's not a we're going to just do a quarter of everything it is there's going to be specific things. And, and so for one, it was very clear that you know that there was, you know, we set the scope, the preaching schedule, and that I was attending the board meetings, and then anything else that happened if they really needed so we can negotiate what additional pay with come to do any additional work. But I was basically working with the board and, and working in and preaching. The other congregation, there was a little bit more pastoral care because I had a little bit more hours, but we did pretty much the same thing. And so I think really being clear with the congregation of what, what does, what tasks are, is encompassed within the part time ministry, and being very clear in setting those budgets. And really, you're setting those boundaries, but also helping them set the boundaries of what to ask. So if they asked you something more than So, for me, it was like, Okay, well, that's not exactly what we talked about. So can we do it? Should we need to renegotiate what my role is? And it was really, it was really helpful that I could say, here's what here are the things that we said that I would do. And so I think it's really helpful to have to be clear about what is expected within a particular part time ministry. And particularly, I would say, when these positions are less than halftime, because it's even harder to, you have even less hours. And it's so easy to even accidentally go over hours. Just because something happened, and in trying to keep track of what is reasonable. And I think the other piece of say is also really we renegotiated every year of what the contract was. Just so that we were very clear that you know, is this working is this not as like, you know, I'm actually being called to do a lot of pastoral care. So we should talk about what pastoral care is going to mean in this and what other things I need to let go up in order to take that if that's the need of the congregation. So it's that constant renegotiation is was really important to make sure that both that for you it is sustainable. And also the congregation really understands the ministry that they have, and what they're offering. So and where they need to take a larger role, as well. Rev. Erica Baron 17:37 Yeah, I just want to add that when you're communicating to the board first, because that's usually where the initial negotiation happens. And to the whole congregation, it is as important to be clear about what you are not doing as it is to be clear about what you are doing. I learned this the hard way. And my first year in ministry, one of the two congregations I was serving, had planned on having a halftime minister, but for various reasons that are boring, our first year together was quarter time. And that basically meant that but they still wanted to worship services a month, and that's basically a quarter time job all by itself. So I did those worship services. And I met with the board, basically just what you said, Darrick, there was no time in my contract to do pastoral care. But that was not communicated to the congregation like basically at all. Like this is, this is at least as much my fault as the boards. But together, we did not do a good job of telling the congregation that. And so there were people who called me for pastoral care. And because I wasn't great at setting boundaries at the time, I responded, but the longer term impact of that was people feeling really neglected emotionally for my first year. And that content, that feeling never went away. Even when my time increased, and I was able to do more pastoral care, I couldn't like entirely overcome the impression I had made that I didn't care about them as people. Whereas I think if we had communicated that more clearly, then there, at least, there wouldn't have been such high expectations that I was, as far as people's experience, just ignoring. Um, and then, one last thing I want to say before we dive into our more discussion time is that part of not doing the whole job means letting go of parts of it that you want to do, if they're not the right, you know, fit or whatever. So when I reduced my time, from full time to three quarter time, the big thing that I let go of was adult faith formation, and religious education, which I love. It's actually one of my favorite parts of the job. But it when we sort of sat down and I listed out all of the things that I could let go of that was the one that made the most sense for where the congregation was at the time. And so then I had to live with the fact that that wasn't really happening. And that was hard sometimes. But, um, so anyway, there's a managing of your own expectations of your ministry that goes along with also managing the congregations expectations. Um, so I want to come back to while people are using the chat a lot, it's best for the part time minister to have one supervisor versus the entire board. Yeah, that I don't know that I've ever had a good supervisory situation in a congregation. So. But let's see, I wanted to say a little more about that. And then we'll go back to Mike's question. Speaker 3 20:39 I was just wondering, basically, who should supervise the Minister to make sure that the Minister is doing the jobs that the congregation wants done? Rev. Erica Baron 20:50 I mean, in my experience, that has always been my job. Depending on which congregation I was in, I would say two of the three congregations, I served less than full time, were very trusting of my calculations on that. So I would say if this is what I'm up to, and they would say, Great, we love it. If I, if things were creeping up, I could say, hey, we need to re-negotiate this a little bit. But it wasn't ever, like, difficult. And the other congregation, which is the one that I was not great at communicating with the congregation with about, I think because just there were, there were right, a wider range of experiences of amount of ministry in the members of that congregation. And so their expectations were kind of all over the place. And that came with a lot more like needing to justify my decisions about how I spent my time and prove that I had, like, spent the amount of time and stuff. And so that was less comfortable. But it was still, it's still me accounting for my time to the whole board. Not ideal, but that's in practice, how it happened about you, Darrick, how did that work for you? Rev. Darrick Jackson 22:05 It was the same, I think the duty, the President often took more of the lead in terms of having those conversations. But it was there was a lot of trust, and that I was doing what, you know, what was expected. But they did, I think with with one congregation, the congregation I talked about that kind of came in with, you know, we don't want to take advantage of you. So we want to make sure that I was they were more attentive to, you know, if seeing if I was actually doing more. So they would know this more. And actually, if they didn't think I was, was doing enough of what they expected, but they were just where I attended to that experience, the other congregations, not so much. They were just, I think their work was really, I think they were just trying to exist as the congregation. And the fact that I was there preaching was, was really fine. They also had a, this was also kind of locations where we had a major, actually two major building issues that happened during my time there. And so they became preoccupied with trying to save the building, basically. And I had to be much more in, in charge of being sure that I was particularly with thought that made your work, I wasn't drawn into over functioning, to kind of save them. And that was so that. So that was I had to put that boundary because if I didn't, they would let me completely use as many hours as I gave them. They were ready to take that. And and we're not thinking about that accountability at all. Rev. Erica Baron 23:52 Yeah, thank you. Um, so Mike raises this question of multiple part time specialists and how you can specialize in the stuff that you are particularly interested in. So I want to start by saying that in that conversation about which part of the ministry you're doing, some of it is about just structurally what the congregation needs. And some of it is about the congregations particular spiritual needs at the moment. But also part of it can be your particular interests and strengths, right? So if you are really all about worship, you can negotiate more worship time and less administration time or whatever the version of that is. And then we are right, like right now, in real time. I have two different congregations that we're working with in New England that are in the process of shifting from a minister at the top of the staff to two co equal folks at the top. The minister and the religious educator. In one case, those are it's a big church. So those are two full time positions. And the other case, this is a tiny church. And so those are emerging as two part time positions. And I think this is really sort of a exciting little emergence of a new style. Um, because, you know, I think, actually, Derek, that the leadership of the UUMA is a really great model of like, you don't have to have one person at the top. Like, you can have three different people who specialize in three different things. And they can work together as a coequal team. So, Mike, do you want to say any more about that? Speaker 4 25:45 Well, you were just capturing one of the elements of it as you were referring to the UUA. And but I'm interested in this thinking about the longevity of our denomination and the challenges with with bringing new ministers into our faith tradition. And for people who the requirements for becoming a minister, the educational requirement, the financial commitment that's associated with that, and how, how potentially certain specializations in part time ministry might have lesser credentialing or educational requirements, which may or may call additional people into our faith tradition into important roles and the satisfy the needs of a great many congregations. Rev. Erica Baron 26:43 Yeah, thank you. The one of the major recommendations from the Commission on Institutional Change report, Widening the Circle of Concern. So if you have not read this report, I recommend that it's, it's quite thorough, and excellent. The purpose of this report is to address the recommendations that will be required to make us actually an anti racist institution. One of their major suggestions or recommendations is that we develop alternate paths into ministry. So there's a number of different ways that could look, the one that sort of there, there's a precedent for in other religious communities is the sort of apprenticeship model. So actually, universally, this is how Universalists trained for ministry back in the day, you know, the Unitarians went to Harvard, but the Universalists would like find a mentor minister and basically apprentice with that person until the mentor was like, Okay, we're going to ordain you now. Um, so that's, that's one potential model. But yes. Also, like in in the two congregations I'm talking about, both of the religious educators are like, they're not ordained, they didn't go to seminary. One, I think they're both credentialed as religious educators, which itself is, you know, not a small process. But it is at least a lower bar financially than seminary. So if we sort of stopped thinking, I think this is this comes with a movement to stop thinking of ministers as a superior profession for religious educators, and more as partners in ministry. That is one of the paths that's at least a slightly lower bar. Um, Darrick, do you want to talk a little bit about being on a on a three person? Rev. Darrick Jackson 28:32 Yes, it has been, I really enjoyed being part of a three person executive team. And that's how we were working with the UUMA. Part of it is been, we have, there's, there's an amount of support we have for each other, that allows us to do the work, we need to do, have some, some way some accountability amongst each other about our kind of our goals and living into the work we want to do. But also know that if something happens in our lives, and things come up, and that we can't, you know, do something that we have other people who can kind of step in, and help out in that one piece. And we do that for each other all the time. We also hold each other accountable things like how you have taken a vacation in a while, you know, you should you should take a vacation, or you know, those sorts of things around self care, to provide that care for each other. And it generates the ideas that we generate, because we come to ministry to this work with very different personalities and ideas and thoughts. And so I always love and we meet every week and are the ideas that come up in our meetings are really, really exciting. And you may be struggling with something and we can just bring something like I'm struggling with this and it's like oh, have you thought about it? Now this resource over here or the you know, here's what I hear what you say, you said, here's my thought. And all of a sudden, you know, we're off in a new direction of like how to solve whatever issue. I think it also requires a lot of work. We have been very intentional about our communication, and making sure that we talk to one another, that we are, you know, keeping each other in the loop around what's going on. And we've been really learning like, how do we? How do we respond? How do we respond to things? Like, when is it within our authority in our role? And when are the things that is the within the role of the executive team as a whole, and we need to confer with one another before we can respond. And so and we've been, we've been working with a coach for four years now. And that has helped when to just kind of strengthen this relationship and what the role is, John? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it just responds. So the arrangement is, the three co executives of the UUMA, and with me are serving as the Director of Ministries for Lifelong Learning. And then Melissa Carvill, Ziemer as the Director of Ministries for Collegial Care, and, and then Jannette Lallier, as the Director of Operations, and kind of the three kind of core areas of the UUMA. And we work together to develop kind of the programming and and work with the board to develop visioning. And we've had some good conversations on kind of board executive team relationship. And, you know, it's a big change to go from the board working with one person's executive to an executive team. And we're still in that process of refining what that works. But I find that having that we were able to bring in our strengths and expertise into the conversations, which I think that I probably would not have been navigated if I was the sole executive, but not have been able to navigate the last few years. And as well, without that sort of having those voices and ideas and thoughts in, in the mix. And so I think I think it can be really beneficial. And it's also a commitment to really engage that work as well to do it well. Rev. Erica Baron 32:51 John, yes, these are paid positions. So we're the sort of staff the paid staff of the UUMA has shifted a lot. 13 years in ministry, but we I think we always paid Jannette, right. Rev. Darrick Jackson 33:09 Yes. And that was the Jannette was the first staff person. Yeah, yeah. And then it grew. Rev. Erica Baron 33:16 Yeah. And then Don Southworth Southworth was the first paid Executive Director of the UUMA, when he left that position. Melissa Carvill, Ziemer had basically just come on, I think, yes, like, Deputy Director. So she took over for a bit. And then the thing that emerged after that was this three part executive. So yeah. So other folks want to weigh in on this particular point, or anything else? You can we're gonna be a little freeform here. Yeah, Barbara, you need to unmute, though we can't hear you. Speaker 5 33:57 One of the things that I have really liked about part time ministry, as opposed to full time ministry, and I did that for 13 years before I was part time, I serve a couple of different churches. And it allows me to be more creative in ways than I was as a full time minister, one of the things that I love is teaching. And as a full time Minister, you know, I could do one or two classes. As a part time minister, it's hard to get enough people from a church of 50 to do an adult education class, but thanks to COVID and discovering zoom, I now teach two or three classes that draw people from each of the three churches and it's been so much fun. And it's lovely for them because especially during COVID people would say, My God, this is the only place I get to meet anybody new. But you do get to say, you know, I have limited time, how can I make the best use of it in a way that full time ministry doesn't necessarily cause you to do nor does the congregation want you to be saying Let's create something new. I mean, it's part of their program. But there's there's ways that being a part time ministry call should be more creative that I really love. Um, one of the things that I also really want to point out is the thing about rural churches. And there were questions earlier about, you know, what do you do if you? How do you get a full time minister who doesn't live locally? And the reason they're my responses, you get somebody who's willing maybe to drive a couple hours, and then stay there for several days, you don't go back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, even when to try to have some physical presence, even if it's concentrated time. Rev. Erica Baron 35:42 Yeah. Thank you. That's great in just preview of coming attractions in the next hour. When Sarah and I are talking, I served two congregations that were an hour's drive apart, Sarah served to congregation the same to two of Barbara three. And Sarah served two congregations that were a significant air line trip across. So we'll talk about the like difference in going back and forth on a daily basis versus like, spending longer times in each places. I negotiated with the, so the two congregations that I served, which were Rutland and Bennington, Vermont, when they, they hired me separately, but they, in their congregational records, they referenced each other and sort of suggested that serving both congregations would be useful. And so because there was, you know, I was coming, I was moving to Vermont to serve these two congregations. And I had the choice basically to live in one city or the other, or to live halfway in between. And I decided to live in one which was Rutland, so that at least some of the time I could walk to work instead of driving for an hour. And because of that, I negotiated with the two boards, that they would each be responsible for half of the time, it took me to travel. In actual practice, I didn't always sort of charge them for that time, so to speak, just because I had a lot of control over when I'm went from one to the other. And some of that was just my preference. And so I didn't seem fair, but I did you know, especially on weeks where it was getting to be a lot, take some of that travel time as part of the time for both congregations. How about you, Darrick, did you What did you do about travel time? Rev. Darrick Jackson 37:30 Um, I didn't, you know, that was one of the things that's like, I probably should have negotiated travel time. Because I was 45 minutes from both congregations. And, but I but I also was very specific about when I was there. And I only show that I was only there twice a week like I did, I would come for one day, and I would kind of do my work for the congregation, like for office hours, and then I would come in on Sunday, the Sundays that I would preach. So so it was even twice a week, actually, regularly. I was there once a week, every weekend. And I was preaching that was the second time. So I just kind of wrapped that up into just the the compensation that I was in just assume that is part of the travel. But the cost of of working. Rev. Erica Baron 38:24 Yeah, yeah. We also both of us served before zoom was a thing. So I had to like physically be there. So I'm curious, Barbara, if it's different for you, since you do do some of your ministry on Zoom. Speaker 5 38:36 It is it's changed a lot. in interesting ways. Sometimes I think they're really positive. And sometimes they're very frustrating. One of the things I want to say it's in my contract for all three churches that I served, and we've talked a lot about it is that all of the contracts, say basically, I'll be here and I'll do this. However, if there's a crisis in another church, if there's a death, then that takes priority. And all three of the churches at some point have had to deal with that. And all of them have appreciated when I'm able to say yeah, right now, you really need the minister. And the other congregation understands that I need to be here. And that was somebody suggested that when I first started, and that's been really valuable, and for all three churches to realize that I serve other churches, too, it's been really important. Zoom has really opened up a lot of possibilities. The downside I would say for that is that I used to be a lot more clear that these four or five days are most of the time that I'll be in Rutland, and I'll be in Glens Falls here. And because of zoom so many more meetings and things have gotten very fluid, that I'm finding it much harder to say this is the time when I served this church, and this is when I served here. Zoom has has muddied the waters some and it's also opened up a lot of possibilities. The first Christmas that we had everything shut down because of zoom. And in both Vermont and New York, they were seriously shut down, like couldn't go in the States for either of the states actually, for well over a year. And so we did our Christmas service as a joint, we took an old radio play, and reassembled it and did it with two different churches, and it was so much fun. So there's all these possibilities. But the thing of keeping your time I'm finding that that's gotten muddy. Rev. Erica Baron 40:25 Yeah, thank you, um, we had this experiment going in Central Mass. It didn't go entirely to plan. But, you know, that's how experiments are, with three congregations that all hired the same religious educator together, rather than three congregations separately hiring part of the religious educators time. And one of the conversations in like, structuring that was, intentionally setting up programming time that was available to all three congregations, that basically was her time for all three congregations. And they each got like a third, you know, kind of for a third of the hours in each congregation. And then time that was specifically in each congregation. And I, whether you, when you're working for more than one congregation, most of the time, in my experience, you're contracting separately with each congregation. And but I think there's something to be said for that, like, everybody gets together and negotiates it all together, rather than you being the one who like has to do all of that sorting out and deciding what counts for what. So you know, if you can manage to make that happen, I think I think that's really great. I just want to mention one structural thing, because we've talked a little bit about the barriers of getting into ministry, and what's your employment, your fellowship, the barriers of getting into final fellowship? So when I was first in, like, when I received preliminary fellowship, and was going into my first ministry, which was quarter time and quarter time, the rule was, you had to be in a single ministry, at 20 hours a week in order for it to count for preliminary fellowship. So I talked to, there was David Petit, at the time, and it was like I, you know, I'm doing these two quarter times, like, Could we call them 1 20 hour a week ministry. And he said, well, right to the MFC, and ask, because they are actually at least this was true at the time, this is 13 years ago. So who knows what it is now. But at the time, they were much more likely to grant permission than forgiveness. So if you asked ahead of time, and said, This is how I'd like to structure this. So that's what I did. And they wrote back and said, We'll allow it as long as you have a single combined committee on ministry, with people from both congregations, which turned out to be like the best suggestion anyone ever made, because it widened the circle of people who were like helping me balance both, you know, logistically, and emotionally, my ministry and the two congregations, and then it was allowed to count for preliminary fellowship. So I would say if you're, if you're, if you read the rules, and there's a thing in the rules that are just not going to work for you, it's at least worth a try to ask for an accommodation. Because you know, they might say no, but then you're no worse off. And they might say yes, and if you do it before, before the thing is an action, they're more likely to say yes, um, yes, Helen. Helen 43:28 Like I said, in the larger group, I'm just finished my first year of seminary. Do you guys have any suggestions? Both of you and anybody else who's who's currently serving part time or has about things I should make sure that I learn or books I should read or anything since I know that I want to do part time ministry? Yeah. Rev. Erica Baron 44:00 I would say, if you're going to be doing part time ministry, you're going to be working in small congregations, small congregations behave differently than midsize and large congregations in some significant ways. Not every not everybody knows that not everybody whose job it is to help you in your formation understands that really deeply. And there is a sort of, there has been I think this is changing, but there has been a sort of preference for large congregations as the place where you should learn because they do things the best. And I would say that's not true. So like, if you know you want to do small congregational ministry, do your internship in a small congregation, have your mentors be people who have been in small congregations or are trying to, you know, connect with ministers who are serving multiple congregations or have in the past? Because it really they do behave differently, and it's helpful to have your expectations set for family size versus because it's really it's really different. The best. Kendra Ford, who recently left the congregation in Exeter, New Hampshire gave me the best version of this that I ever heard, which is that what we often call family size or small congregations are like cats. So they, they want you and they want you and they want you to go away when they don't want you and they won't necessarily tell you. You got to like watch the signs. Yeah, and then the next size up, which is the pastoral congregation are like Border Collies, because they're, like, tell us what to do. But they're like always looking to the Minister to be like, tell us what to do. So anyway, yes, go ahead. Helen 45:36 My home congregation is the only one that I've spent any time in. And it's a small congregation that like the most members that it's ever had has been like 100 and something and it behaves really more like the pastoral congregation which is why they were like determined to hire a full time minister, which they did and it financially was a very poor choice. But and yeah, I've I've been on the board of a small congregation for for you know, I spent four years on the board of a small congregation. So I read anything, and watched anything that the UUA had that I could get to but I am geographically limited for an internship congregation, which and most of the, I'm in Central Florida and most of the ministers are not in full fellowship. There are like in use distance Summerfield, apparently they have interims, you know, Gainesville is going to have an interim next year. It's just and I think I think that St. Pete has an interim. But it's, I'm going to have to take what I can get, Rev. Erica Baron 47:07 Yeah, fair enough. I would recommend reaching out to Tyler Cole's who's the person on the small congregation team from the Southern Region, he wasn't able to be with us today. But that would be a good person to talk to just for your like local, more specific, where are the resources? I would also say like, again, in the context of zoom. You know, your internship supervisor or official internship supervisor is going to be the Minister of whatever congregation you're working in. But once you're in preliminary fellowship, you need to have a mentor. I know a lot of people who have mentors at great distance, because they were a better fit for the that minister's particular challenges in ministry. So like, establishing relationships with people, even if they're not your like, your official people at a distance is also helpful. Yeah, other Barbara, Darrick, do you have other suggestions for Helen, Rev. Darrick Jackson 48:11 I was going to echo I may be built on bear with Megan put, and in the chat about boundaries, including clear boundaries. But I also think with that I would also say is really under understand your own boundaries, and your your kind of your ethical framework. So that because congregations are gonna throw at you situations that you might not have a thought about what your boundaries are, so to know how you could how you will make those boundaries, those decisions, and is important. So they really do some of that work of when a What are I ethics? What are my values? What's really important? How am I going to what are the my decision points that will help me navigate when I end up having to make a choice that I was not ever prepared to expect dealing with? And, you know, my spiritual director, actually told me once, which is really helpful is like, you know, what it? What is it really things that are key important for you, that may help you align that you're always gonna say yes to, and so you can be willing to say no to everything else, so that you can see you can actually do the things that you say yes. And that was a really helpful thing for me to think about. Were they Yes, is that I think we're part time ministry, knowing what your expect what you are doing and your tasks or your yes places, and then being comfortable with saying No, and that's it's hard to tell people who wants stuff from you no. But for part time ministry, you have to say No, way more than you might feel comfortable. So being comfortable with no, it's actually important. Rev. Erica Baron 49:50 I just want to lift up what Barbara said in the chat, which is there's often a perception, it's often true and perceived that Ministers are doing part time ministry because they couldn't do full time ministry and they will go away as soon as they can do full time ministry. So she's recommending being clear with congregations that you are choosing part time ministry deliberately. Because that is better for them and better for you. Go ahead, Barbara, do you want to unmute and say whatever you needed. Speaker 5 50:22 Stick around. I mean, historically, an awful lot of people were part time when they first left seminary and they were looking for full time. So an awful lot of smaller congregations really almost have an expectation that you're there the the second rate thing and you'll leave as soon as you can, and for them to know that you actually will stick around is a huge thing. Rev. Erica Baron 50:44 Cool. Megan says that with Darrick just said applies to full time ministry as well. In a way it is a blessing to be forced to say no when you're part time. Yeah, one of the things that's true is when you're part time when you have two congregations. Um, you can always blame it on the other congregation. Like I'm sorry, I can't be that third it there that day. I'm working in the other congregation, which is sometimes easier than the full time ministry job of being like, I'm done with my like, I'm done. So yes, okay, it is five of we're going to let you all go. I'm going to hang out. So if you want to just keep chatting with me. I will be here. And we will start with Sarah and I still talking about part time ministry life for ministers in 10 minutes at five past whatever hour it is in your time. So thank you so much, Darrick for being here. Really appreciate it. Rev. Darrick Jackson 51:35 Oh, my pleasure. Yes. Transcribed by https://otter.ai