Christine Purcell  0:05  
Okay, erase this, right. Hi folks, welcome. I am Christine Purcell. I am the Transitions Program Manager for the UUA. I'm a member of our congregational life staff, the field staff who live across the country, and I hold the ministerial search portfolio. For all the congregations in search. Most of my work involves talking with search committees and board leaders. But this is a bit of a departure for me, I'm glad to be here, I was asked to speak about part time ministry search, and it's a delight to do so. From folks, for folks who benefit from visual descriptions, I am a light skinned person with a white blouse, dark glasses and kind of a riot of reddish hair. Some accessibility notes captions are enabled, if you need to change the size of the captions, you can do so in the Zoom Accessibility Settings menu. If you need to increase the size of the font this came up in a meeting last week, I didn't know you could do this. If you're using the chat and you would benefit from a larger size font, you can do so by holding the CTRL key for Windows or the Command key for Mac and hitting the plus sign. Just want to make sure everyone can you see the chat because we'll probably be using it. I have done my best to make the slides easy to see and read. But if you're using a screen reader and you can't access my slides, be assured I'm going to cover everything on them. It's really just an outline, to keep me focused in my conversation. Everyone, please be aware I am recording this session, as requested by the organizer of the event, you can turn off your camera, you can ask questions in the chat or in in, like direct messages to me through the chat function if you would not like to appear in the recording. Um, final thing I guess I will I will pause between slides for questions. And we will have a good bit of time at the end of the presentation for questions and discussion. But feel free if you'd like to put questions in the chat as we go. And I will try to keep up or catch up as we go through. All right, this is the first question I am always asked almost invariably, especially with part time ministry searches, but sometimes with full time ministry searches as well. Is there a minister shortage? There have been a lot of stories about this going around the UU world, especially since the interim ministry search that we had last year.

You know, the there's not an easy answer, are we you might think so. But but it's it's complicated. The great resignation has touched ministry as it has done all of the helping professions. We've had, you know, ministers leave for all kinds of reasons or need to reduce their time as they've had different family circumstances, health circumstances and just you know, meeting the challenges of, of being in a helping profession has has affected ministers and some have left the profession. We've also seen a slowing down of the number of ministers coming through the fellowship process to become new ministers, which is affecting, you know, the numbers of ministry ministers in search as well. But we're seeing some rebalancing there. So I think that's that's kind of a hopeful sign. Part time searches aren't necessarily contract searches in in the way things we we have been structured in the UUA. And the reason for that is that we saw in the last few years that we allowed part time developmental, interim or settled searches that they weren't getting applicants on the same timeline as the full time positions. And what we want to do is set you up for success. Basically, we don't want you to put a lot of process and and congregational engagement and buy in into something and then end up at the end of the process without you having a candidate for ministry. So we've found that the contract process is a lot more forgiving. We'll talk about that toward the end of of my presentation today. It's just easier on congregations in general, and allows the time for you to find the right match for your positions. They've actually altered in the last year our recommendations to congregations that have fewer than 125 members or kind of shaky budgets even if they intend to go the full time ministry route. We've seen that congregations with fewer than 125 members or or those with with kind of precarious budgets don't have many applicants if any applicants in in the other types of search that are not contract. So we actually really recommend that congregations think about the contract ministry process because it tends to go better for them even at full time. As far as what's trending a sustainable approach is is trending. Ministers would really rather go into a part time agreement that's sustainable, then be surprised partway through the year. Um, that the congregation where they are needs to reduce their hours. Like, like Jeff said in the keynote, when congregations wait too long to pivot to part time, they really struggle. So So being really clear with yourselves as as congregational leaders about what you can afford and what you can sustain before entering into a ministry search tends to lead to better matches. I'm seeing too, that congregations which are, are recalibrating to make a difference in a world that has been changed by the pandemic, are doing better in the search than those that are simply trying to keep the doors open. Those with a renewed sense of mission, are doing a little bit better in the search. So to go back to the shortage, it's, it's hard to track, like I can say, what the percentage that like the ratio minister is searching in the settled search or the interim search to searching congregations would be it's easier to do than to say exactly what the situation is with contract searches. Because contract searches aren't bound to an annual cycle, they can be opened at any time. And they can you can find a minister and hire a minister anytime. So it's not as clean of a process where we can say, X number of ministers and X number of congregations in the cycle, since the cycle, straddles years, basically. What I can tell you about right now is that we have 55 congregations with open contract searches. And that's kind of a lot. That's, that's more than we would typically have in a given year or at this time of the year. Of those contracts. searches that are now open. 38 of them are part time. There are about 20 more profiles being prepared. And two more were posted this morning, in fact, and about half of the open contract searches have applicants at this time. So they're they're assessing and seeing what might be possible for them. Going forward. We are kind of at the end of the annual search cycle for the other types of search. Ministers tend to search between December and mid May for positions that will start on August 1. But that's not to say that that those positions which are still open won't find someone it's just more ministers are searching in the window I just mentioned. Okay, that's all I can think to say on this topic to folks have questions about the state of ministry and ministry search right now.

Speaker 2  7:32  
Excuse me, would you mind repeating the numbers on I think you said 55 contracts searches are open now. 

Christine Purcell  7:40  
Sure, yes, there are presently 55 contracts searches open.

Speaker 2  7:45  
And 38 ish of those were part time, right? Yes. Thank you very much.

Christine Purcell  7:50  
You bet you got it.

If folks, use the hand race function, I'll be able to see better I can't see everyone on my screen right now. I have my slides open. So if anyone has questions, feel free to unmute yourself or use the raise hand function I'll call on you. And if not, we can move on. Alright, I'd like to talk a little bit about the way the UUA supports part time searches. That has changed over the years. And it's needed to honestly. When we looked at transforming the search process and create the ministry search system, which is the online portal we've created to support searches, we were really thinking about congregations that with with the need for part time ministry, because about two thirds of our congregations and Jan would know this better than I, Jan Gartner, who who is here with us today has has really good numbers on this I've seen before but not to put you on the spot, Jan, just a little shout out. About two thirds of our congregations are of a size where it would be a struggle for them to sustain full time ministry. From what I've seen, and so we want to prioritize support for these congregations. Small congregations are where our faith is being played out in the world. That's part of the reason why I love Jeff MacDonald's book. I've been recommending it for a long time. Not that we're trying to sell books at this at this event at all. But it really is lovely to read because it has such a positive tone and such a wonderful framing for realistic expectations. I mean, from my perspective, gone are the days when program size was was the ideal. It was kind of a cookie cutter idea when I first came on staff, I don't know 12-13 years ago, where you know, congregations could grow to this size and have this kind of staffing as as kind of a model and I don't think that, that's not where we are and so we are tailoring our support as as an association to meet congregations where they are. Before we transformed the settlement system, the ministry so system, there used to be a webpage that ministers can access as part of the UUA website, there was a list of congregations in contract or part time search where it would show like the name of the congregation, the percentage of time and basically just had an email address to to the board. So you could contact them if you wanted to apply, I guess. I think most ministries or a lot of ministries, where we're probably lined up through district connections, you know, someone on district staff would say, Oh, I know someone's living in a nearby town and maybe you can talk with them. But in the the new way that we support contract ministry searches, and part time searches, there's listing parity with other types of search. These these part time searches are listed right alongside all the other types of search. And they have profiles that the congregation can fill out. So you have a chance to say who you are, and who you're looking for in a ministry partner, before ministers decide if they want to apply. It's also beneficial over what we used to offer because each of those congregations gets the full ministerial record of each of their applicants. And so they're able to learn more about the minister before they even have an interview. I believe that leads to better matches, I think being really clear on on who you are. And what you offer, in the search process is good, because you know that nobody's the same. And so ministers, they're all different. They all have different skills, congregations, all different contexts, all different needs. So we're doing our best to make sure folks know each other a little bit better going in. We also have the ability for people in in any type of search, but particularly the contract search and part time contract searches to indicate whether they're open to the idea of a hybrid or a virtual ministry, we've heard a little bit about some of these arrangements today. So as part of your, your profile for seeking a contract Minister, you can say, you know, we'd be open to the idea of discussing with you, you know, long weekends where you come in or a week a month or whatever is mutually agreeable. We're not really in the middle of saying, you know, what's, what's possible there, or what's desirable. But it's another way for smaller congregations and congregations seeking part time ministry, even when there's a time when there seemed to be fewer ministers in search, than before, to be able to find some kind of partnership to be able to work with someone for for a year, perhaps while continuing to search that is an option that we offer. We're always learning, we're always adapting our search process, because we want to make it better, and we want it to work for all or all of our congregations. So that's something new that we've added in the last year. Another thing that is is now more likely, and more possible on request, it's not automatic in the way that it would be for a settled ministry, is you can request from regional staff, a new ministry startup. When you find your your your part time ministry partner, especially in congregations that are making a shift from no ministry to part time ministry, or from full time to part time, please ask for this. Regional staff has a really great approach to doing these kind of kind of menu based they'll talk with leadership and talk with the Minister about what would be most helpful to help everyone align expectations and kind of figure out the shared ministry balance between the ordain professional and lay leaders. There are a lot of cultural shifts that need to happen around trust, power and authority in these cases, and they are great partners for doing that work.

Right. That's when I can think to share about you you a support for part time searches to folks have any questions about this slide.

Unknown Speaker  14:04  
That was a good idea as far as the long weekends versus virtual, it's something I never even thought about as part of the profile search.

Christine Purcell  14:15  
Yeah, and interestingly, I have a list of ministers who are really open to doing this and have demonstrated skills in doing it. And so congregations that are willing to do this, they're looking to apply so part of the the annual search cycle kind of wrapping up, leads me to think that this coming week I should email in fact, will email all the congregations with open contracts searches and make sure that they're aware of that option, even though they've likely seen it in the, in their search profile, just highlight that possibility so that they don't feel frantic, like we're not going to get someone, we're not going to have anyone in the coming here. I mean, in maybe they won't. There's other support we have for congregate or navigating being lay led but but we do want to make sure folks know about this option. All right, at?

Unknown speaker  15:06  
Um, yes. You said that congregations could request something from the regional staff, but I didn't get the name of it.

Christine Purcell  15:15  
That's a new ministry startup, it's when when your new minister begins working within the first few months, not like the first week, it's a good idea to kind of see where the rub points are, and to get into the ministry a little bit before before racing into a startup. But there's a component that's for the whole congregation to introduce the minister and which may be particularly important in these kinds of cases, the duties that they've agreed to take on in their ministry with the congregation, so that everyone understands, basically, the ministers contract in a lot of ways. But also so the minister can learn some about the congregational culture, regional staff that facilitates great sessions that introduce the minister and the congregation to each other in that way. And then there's a separate component where regional staff works with Minister, the staff and usually just board leadership to basically put the pieces of ministry on the table and say, Okay, where do we want this? Where does this live? Is this a lay leader function or an ordained person function? Figuring that out? So so they are they're great partners in doing that with with congregations with with new ministers? 

Unknown speaker  16:29  
So excuse me, so that would be started. Really, before you even start your search? Yeah. Is that what you're talking about? 

Christine Purcell  16:37  
No, it's when you have your new ministry partner with someone right? At that point, you would do the the new ministry startup.

Okay. Got it. Thank you, Beth. You're muted. There. 

Unknown speaker  16:55  
We are in the search for part time, Minister quarter time. And so far as we know, we don't have any applicants unless they, popped up in the last few days. And we're, of course, disappointed because we thought people to arcades. Realistically. My question is, what can we do to attract applicants? So make? is are there are there? Trick, not tricks, but any suggestions you have? Make us more of the catch phrases? Yeah.

Christine Purcell  17:33  
We want to make sure that they're muted, because I keep hearing someone and I'm not sure who it is. But anyway, yes, bad. Thank you for asking. So a couple of things. One is is just awareness. You know, things that you can adjust, I'm assuming, hoping that you're already doing your sustainable best on the the compensation piece, but at quarter time, it's really going to take probably someone local, and just the right person to come along for quarter time. The good news is it happens sometimes. There was a quarter time ministry that posted how much can I say about this? Let's say it's in the Midwestern area. And bless these folks, when they were working on their profile. It was such a good profile, just dear folks, wonderful people love ministry, quarter time, and I was thinking, oh, gosh, I hope you get someone and they did. They got someone like amazing, who I mean, just a really well known solid skilled, great minister, which kind of surprised me because I'd seen this this minister in large congregations, I kind of anticipated that he'd go and do another full time ministry somewhere. And I know him, so I called him and I'm like, what, congratulations. And you have this this choice was a bit of a surprise for me. And he said, Well, you know, I have a family home there. I was planning to retire there anyway, they're, they're wonderful people. I'm just I'm gonna do I'm gonna write and do some consulting, to make up the balance of full time and do this quarter time ministry. So so it can happen. I do want to give you that, that bit of hope. But as far as approaches other than, you know, revising compensation, one thing would be, then this is weirdly specific to people who have seen the profiles. The question about congregational culture, in your profile, take a look at that and see because it's the first thing ministers see when they click on your profile, and see what you're saying about yourselves. That that is a place for warmth and story and humor and giving a real sense of of who you are. It's a chance to set the hook and a chance to set yourself apart from all the other congregations on search. So giving people kind of a warm sense when they're reading through your profile and help. I'm making sure that I mean kind of been the theme of the day that that when you're describing the what you expect or hope from the minister, that you're being really reasonable and specific that it's not like a kitchen sink approach to we hope you'll do all these things. Make it really clear how the congregation shores up ministry how how congregants carry the balance of the shared ministry. One thing I know I hear from ministers were in search, especially when they're looking at part time positions is they want to make sure it's not a poorly compensated full time position, they want to make sure that, that it really is going to be part time, that their boundaries are going to be okay, and not surprising, in a bad way when they enter into partnership with folks. So I would say that those things would help. Talking with regional staff. I mean, I mentioned earlier that, you know, these positions used to mainly fill through district connections, but But talking with regional staff about whom they might know. I mean, national staff certainly can also encourage ministers to apply. But sometimes regional staff will know somebody. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they've already been talking to folks. Because you're such a good position. We want to see it. We want to see it filled, we want to see another great match, but sometimes it just takes time. Amen. All right. Gail. 

Beth  21:14  
Yes. Um, you mentioned the book by Chuck somebody. What was that book? 

Christine Purcell  21:20  
I don't Chuck. I'm not sure Jeff? the archaea. 

Unknown speaker  21:23  
Oh, maybe you mentioned you didn't say the title you just made? The author 

Christine Purcell  21:27  
Part time is Plenty. Oh, that one? Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's kind of the theme of the day talking about that book today. Thanks for that. I didn't. Okay. 

Unknown speaker  21:39  
Thanks for clarifying here now.

Christine Purcell  21:41  
And Kathy. you're unmuted Kathy. 

Speaker 5  21:48  
I understand you correctly to say that part time contract positions could be applied for any time during the year? Yes, because we've been in the process. And we thought that all contracts relate to the same schedule such as same as the call. We're in the process now looking for an interim because we thought in April when our minister resigned that that was the only option open at that time of year, in the UUA Hiring Process.

Christine Purcell  22:21  
Contract is always open, enter, I mean, the developmental search has finished for the year. And the settled search has finished for the year. And but interim opens in April into May and contract is always open.

Unknown Speaker  22:34  
Contract on through this always. Okay. Thank you. 

Christine Purcell  22:37  
You bet. All right, I think we're out of hands. Let's see.

I'm looking at the chat real quick. Someone asks, can you search for both a full time or a part time in case? I wouldn't? I don't, what you could say, I would say list a full time if you can sustain full time and signal some flexibility if if ministers would would desire that. I mean, I know ministers who are looking for three quarter time positions right now who have traditionally served in full time positions, because they want a reduced workload. And so to say that you're flexible, but I would, I would say list the higher percentage of time just so that ministers who are looking for full time would pay attention to it. If you listed it as part time, they might not notice it. And you can only have one profile per position open you couldn't list like a quarter time, halftime, third, three quarter time and full time and just see what happens. You need to pick one. Okay, Sam, there are other questions. You can always change the percentage of time though, a number of people have done that related to changing information from their their pledge drives coming in. Can a congregational member or member of the board see the congregational profile, um, sort of. I mean that they would not have access to the ministry search system. Only people on the search team would and for a part time contract position that would likely be mostly board members. So those folks would have access to the profile, we do suggest if they're willing and if there's not, you know, anything that would cause harm in the congregation. We don't want to re traumatize people if there was some some traumas traumatic, you know, incident mentioned in the profile, but it's completely fine for people to share the profile with congregants, certainly with the board as part of the search process.

Kathy, I see you again. Are you back or did you just not you put your hand down Okay, all right. I will move on from here.

Speaker 7  24:51  
Oh, I got a question. I'm sorry. I raised what what do you think is the best percentage, in order to get a part time minister, is it 50%? I mean, I think 25% That's got, you know, how can who's going to come in and work 10 hours a week? That type of thing is 50 the right number, or what is the right number to solicit to get most people to try to come and even look at you.

Christine Purcell  25:26  
Fewer ministers look at part time positions and full time positions, most masters are looking for full time. So I mean, without knowing the specifics of of your needs, and your your capabilities to compensate, I couldn't say I would say, Go do your sustainable best. So so look at the the fabulous compensation resources that we have that are updated. And just so thoughtful, so process driven. So equity base, look at those and say, you know, what percentage of the recommended amount that what ministers are looking for, can we afford and take it from there? I don't think you can, I mean, the the one that's going to get probably the most applicants would be full time, three quarters, time positions tend to get about half of the applicants of full time. And it kind of goes down from there. So there are fewer ministers looking for quarter time than than full time. There are fewer ministers looking for half time than full time. But there are still ministers looking for these positions. Karen asks, What is the process for getting UUA assistance in a part time contract search? Call me. Go go to our I'll share our transitions website, and also our transitional ministry handbook as part of this presentation, get in touch with the transitions office, we'll be glad to talk with leadership about structuring the type of agreement that would be good for you. There's coaching for you all along the way. That's another thing, I'm glad you brought this up. There did not used to be this level of engagement with congregations around their part time positions as there is now, so there's robust support as much as there is for say, an interim or developmental the other types of transitional ministry. We're glad to work with you with with board leadership on your search. So there's all kinds of support, just get in touch with us, Karen.

Jan Gartner  27:28  
Hey, Christine. Yes. I wanted to mention about Bobby's question, if you're in an area where there are other congregations around, there's sometimes situations where somebody has a halftime ministry, and they actually would love a little more and maybe, and now with technology being what it is, we have more remote things going on. So even if you don't have other congregations around with ministers who might want to pick up a little quarter time ministry, in addition to what they have, you know, so many things are possible. So there are many part time ministers who have the the interesting capacity to add more, and I would think that might be an interesting possibility for a congregation that can reasonably only offer roughly quarter time.

Christine Purcell  28:24  
Absolutely Jan. And again, I do have a list of ministers that whenever a virtual or hybrid, you know, congregation that's willing to do some virtual or distance ministry, whenever one of those opens up, I let these ministers know. Hey, look over here, because I want to make sure because they're, you know, they're looking there. See 2-3-4, A few of them are in part time positions, just as Jan said, and are looking to kind of round out to full time and and have skills in this area. They've done virtual ministry and and they're keen to do it again. So yeah, definitely be in touch about that. All right. So what are ministers looking for? I get this question a lot. The number one thing, generally compensation and benefits, can I make this work? It does this this amount of money, allow me to live the life and support my family and the way that we're used to and that we want to do. That is very important. So definitely focus on doing your sustainable best there. And being aware of the benefits that that are due even in part time ministry. Another thing is desirable geography and the zones are hard to figure out because what's desirable for one is not desirable for another. So, you know, sometimes you can look at an area of the country and think, Oh, well, you know, the greater Boston area, you probably can't throw a tennis ball without hitting a UU Minister in Boston area. And but quite a number of ministers have have been going in other directions and in recent years. We've seen more interest in Southern congregations, whether it's because of family in the area, or because of the missional need of Unitarian Universalism, as its as it plays out in the south. You know, real firebrand ministers who who want to be in the thick of legislative struggles are like, send me and so that that we've seen them applying. We never know what desirable, desirable geography looks like for individuals, but but they do. They're like, I want to live in these places. And that's something that they're thinking about. The third thing we're looking for, and this one's a little bit hard to explain, but I'll give it a go. It's just congregational self awareness. Do you know who you are? Are you saying who you are in a nuanced and balanced way in your profile? And in their interactions with you? Are you reducing your home ministry, your whole congregation down to one story? Or are you able to say things like, well, most of the time this, but sometimes that are most of us think this, but some of us think that. They really want to explore that nuance before they commit to a ministry. They also want to see a balanced profile that shares both you know, what the work is what's what could be hard, what could be challenging, where you might be stuck in ministry, balanced out with what's great about you, and why they should join you. So that we will offer coaching to congregations as they present their profiles, we always have regional staff read them, I read them on request as well, to offer coaching about how things are presented, because you want to be candid, like if they knew the last minister who served with the congregation. And they know that that was a hard ministry, and then they read the profile, and it's just rose colored glasses, and then nothing about what they've been struggling with, they're less likely to apply. So they're, they're just looking for that self awareness and candor. And the fourth thing, I don't usually mention this one, but it's come up so much this year. And I think it's a reaction to where we are with, with with this phase of the pandemic. Where's the joy in your ministry? How are you resilient, how are like what is blossoming for you, what is exciting for you. Find some way to convey that because ministers, many of them are tired. And so to be able to say, we're doing this new thing, and everyone's super excited about it, that gets them really interested. So prepare to convey that. I just wish every congregation had a sense that there's nothing wrong with their size. There's nothing wrong with part time ministry. You know, there was a congregation in an area where I used to live. And it was an area that was really blessed with four UU congregations within easy driving distance. And they were all different sizes. There was a family size, a pastoral size, program size, and a corporate size. And the smallest congregation that was family size, did want some part time ministry. They got a part time minister, they called her, they they're like famous for doing house builds for for folks in need in the community. Their their ministry partner was in the letters to the editor constantly anyway, at least once a month. They just had a real presence between their their house building ministry and you know, showing up for things they were always there and their yellow shirts. And they were they were known. And once for one of their presidents reached out to me and was like, Christine's what's wrong with us? Why do we have like 66 members now, we sometimes go up to 79 that we come right back down? Like why? Why can't we like hit 250? What are we doing wrong? Like not a darn thing. You're a wonderful congregation at that size, doing incredible ministry. I was thinking of them because they were in ministry search this year for another part time minister. And they found an incredible, incredible match. And I'm just excited to see how they reinvent themselves because they're still so mission focused and doing really well. And they were able to convey some of this vitality and resilience that they've had throughout the pandemic. And I hope you will be able to as well, should you go into search. Any questions about what ministers are looking for?

Speaker 8  34:27  
I have a question. It seems like the ministers are looking for full time jobs. And then a lot of the congregations are shifting to part time ministers. So do you think that culture in the UUA will shift? Or how are we going to match this up?

Christine Purcell  34:47  
Well, a number of ministers do as Shannon was mentioning that they will work for more than one congregation. Even if the congregations aren't yoked. They figure out ways to to make up the difference. I know ministers who have spiritual direction or like consulting or counseling businesses that they do part time. I know ministers who are part time or adjunct professors in their spare time. I mean, we talk about how we think ministry is, is becoming more bi-vocational because it I mean, it's not just UU, as you heard in our presenter earlier, Jeff say, just across denominations, this is this is what's happening this this is not this is not surprising anymore. This is very much a trendline. And so it is, you know, unless you're administering a larger congregation, those maybe a third of our congregations that can sustain full time ministry, this is is where ministry is going. And so they'll they'll look at different ways to fill the rest of their time. Some of them don't need full time work. That's other thing, I have one friend who has done full time ministry but but is looking now for part time ministry for family reasons. She's not the primary wage earner in her relationship, and she's able to move back and wants to spend more time pursuing another degree and with her family. And so she's looking for a part time ministry now. So I mean, it is a trend whether whether anyone is is really on board with it or not. So I think like our system is changing, our system is responding. I think we're in a state of flux and transition, if you will, right now. I don't know that ministers go to seminary thinking, I'm probably going to get a part time ministry. I hope they're they're thinking about that. I hope they're talking with people who tell them that that is that is a possibility for them. And they're thinking about how they could make that work. Bobby?

Unknown speaker  36:55  
Yes, how you doing, Chris?

Christine Purcell  36:56  
Hey, good to talk to you.

Speaker 2  36:58  
Um, is there a difference between just where you want to go actually, to school to be a lay minister, then just having I guess, the title lay of a lay person? Is there a difference in that? Or do you have to go actually, to school for lay ministry to be a you know, lay, lay lay lay person in your church?

Christine Purcell  37:28  
Right. So there, there are a lot of ways that lay folks can skill up. And there's even in the Central East region, there's a certification for lay ministers, there's a program that people can do. And we talk at the way about, about how to how to scale that program up, I think that's something that will happen in future years is finding some baseline, you know, competencies and training and certain skills that we'll want people to have when when doing this sort of thing, because we don't have that kind of like Deacon level that other other congregational traditions do. So that's, that's something that we're we need to work on, I think, as a denomination. But there are all kinds of like lay pastoral care trainings that are presently available through the UUA, worship leader trainings that can be done. If you haven't looked at LeaderLab on our UUA website, do take a look at that, because it's got great training, the UU Leadership Institute, as well has has kind of longer, longer classes you can take and that sort of thing. So there's not presently across the denomination like the lay leader designation, or certification or education track. We offer a lot of like skills based education, but not like a lay minister, outside of the Central East track at this time. 

Unknown speaker  39:00  
Thank you. 

Christine Purcell  39:04  
I see the question. There's a question that like, what if your congregation and board are a mess and full time Minister leaving and we'd like halftime minister, should you be honest? Oh, goodness, yeah. No, yeah, you should be honest. And please be honest, but also frame it. I mean, to be able to say like, these things have happened. And this is what we took from it. We see a need or a desire to, to do some work around conflict resolution or healthy relations or whatever, like whatever the issue is. We're blowing the dust off our covenant and trying to live into it. I mean, being really honest about what you've learned from hard times. You know, every congregation goes through hard times. And so to say, you know, we need leadership development. Our board needs conflict training, to be able to say the things you know, you need. It's okay. It's okay to say where are you it's better to say where you are. Don't surprise a minister by Putting on, you know, putting out a really smooth profile, it looks like everything's great. And then they get there and then they're like, wait, what? Nobody wants that. If you want any chance of a match, that's that's good or, or that has the possibility of lasting really telling the truth. I mean, you can frame it in ways that make it less scary for me, but, but you should tell the truth. I'm reading what Jan said too. Yeah. Yeah.

Jan Gartner  40:31  
Yeah, some people like those kinds of ministries, like that's the kind of ministry they are called to

Christine Purcell  40:38  
True. Absolutely. And reach out for some help with how you feel like things are messy. You know, regional staff is here for that. So you know, if there's some kind of training or work they could do, listening circles, something that's a try to break a pattern for here for that so so rely on UUA partners, we, we are with you if you invite us into to work with you for sure. All right.

So talking about preparation for a part time search, see whole book by by Jeff McDonald. Support and empower lay leaders see what parts of the ministry you can carry when you're looking for a part time Minister. See, see what's what's what's faithful for you, what what makes sense for you, what you're able to do look at your your capacity. And and look at it fresh because everyone's capacity coming back from COVID is different than it was. Everyone's commitments are different. Everybody's energy is different. Not everybody's but a lot of folks. So see, see what you can do what you want to do, and see what you need and want a minister to do. So you can say that as part of your search, it's really important. Think about what you could do to share or collaborate with other congregations, if you have a neighboring congregation. Or as if Jan, as Jan mentioned, and I wouldn't have thought to mention, you cannot share ministry with with a remote congregation. That's it. It's happened less than that, I would like to see it right. And that could be a wave of the future. But but you know, talking with your neighbors. When I worked on, when I was in a small congregation working in leadership and doing some some worship team stuff, we had another small congregation nearby where we knew we had some great lay speakers, and we would send speakers back and forth. I mean, in a coordinated sort of way. But see, see if there's staffing that you could share, if you went to the Dream Team workshop earlier, it was a great example of how congregations can can share ministry, whether they're, you know, programmatically linked or or not. The opposite of church staff finances off can offer some guidance on how to structure benefits when you have two part time ministries that are associated in some kind of way. If you want to be able to get benefits for a minister based on cumulative hours, instead of those those full time hours, you can do that. And then kind of my last tip, and this is from one of our largest congregations. Their staff team motto for this year is do less better, and I love it. Streamline you know, at this point in the pandemic, if you still have the same 26 congregations cranking out church work as you did before you are in the minority. So if you're having you know committees of one that are not really serving what your mission needs to be right now change that, do less better. Really think about how how you can streamline what you're offering. So your ministry doesn't feel so unwieldy. Part of the ministry feeling like it's it's such a big job is just that it's not it's not organized, right. It's not right size for where you are right now and what you're called to do in the world. So that's something to definitely look at. And regional staff can help with that too, if you would welcome some some assistance. Lisa,

Speaker 2  44:14  
I wondered if you have a part time minister, are they still gonna do the Personnel Management? Or is that became one of those negotiable things? 

Christine Purcell  44:25  
Yeah, it depends one on how your bylaws are structured, they might require a certain kind of supervision. But there are ways to change that and that that is something that's often in flux when people are thinking about part time ministry is like how do we move supervision to the board to free up the Minister to do what we see as as the ministry we need, which is not supervision, so it can be shifted.

Unknown Speaker  44:48  
Thank you. 

Christine Purcell  44:48  
You bet.

Jan Gartner  44:55  
And I can't resist one comment on that. As someone who deals with a lot of supervision and staffing stuff, it's really no fun to report to a collection of people. And so it might be a board member, but the board could also deputize someone whose job it is to be the supporter of the staff. Like they're gonna be take responsibility for things that, you know, a staff supervisor might do. And so it's a special role. It's like being the stewardship chair. It's not necessarily a board member, but they would be in conversation for a variety of reasons. So, yeah, it's always nice to have a designated person rather than kind of a collection of people.

Unknown Speaker  45:49  
I understand that, you know, thank you.

Christine Purcell  45:52  
Great point, Jan. Thank you. All right, moving forward to the search process for a part time mentors, Ministers. So I'm gonna drop a link in the chat. And I'm sure this will be in the resources as well. We have a transitional ministry handbook, which I updated yesterday. So it is piping hot and fresh and very good. So there's a section on contract ministry, I think it starts on page 50, or 51. Now, I should know that that talks about the process for finding a contract minister. There's a part of it that a number of congregations skipped over because they were in a rush. And I would just urge you, if you can to really take a moment, even if you don't have to even if your your bylaws are structured, which they should be to allow the board to, to hire transitional ministers to really take a moment and build some congregational buy in. That's something that came up earlier in the the main session was about like the difference in the process between the settled search and transitional searches where the board is allowed to hire someone, I mean, the board needs to be able to hire someone. But in the settled search, there's, there's more congregational buy in all the way through from assembling the search team to, you know, kind of a listening tour of the congregation in the fall to that nine day candidated week that they were talking about. And that those are not part of the contract process. But you can find ways to build trust and buy in, you can communicate with your congregation all along the way to let them know how it's going. So people feel like they have a piece of this. And they're not just like our board hired a minister I guess this is our, our minister. Now there is really good trust building work that you can do. On the front end of that. I've talked already a little bit about the the timing, not to talk fast. The timing and process. These are, as I said, open year round, you'll see in the handbook that there's an advantage to posting on or by December 1, for positions that open on August that will begin on August 1, so that the position can stay open through the whole window when ministers are searching. Minister start looking on December 1 and they stop looking for the most part, most ministers stop looking in mid May. So so to have it open on December 1, it gives you the best chance of having the largest pool of applicants. With five minutes left, I'm not sure how much I'm going to say about the process because I really wrote the whole thing on the transitional ministry handbook. And it's like two pages. It's it's not that long. So I do urge you to check that out if you haven't already. It's it's a pretty clear process. It's usually handled by a taskforce of the board, three to five people, might be exclusively board members, sometimes there's a reason to have a trusted voice or two from the congregation on that team, as part of the team of three to five people. Basically they list a profile that tell us about your needs and your context and your hopes for the next ministry. And then ministers can apply directly to that team at well. It's a free market system, people say who they are and what they're looking for. And then ministers apply. And so in this process, there aren't any like awkward dates or not a lot of structure to it. Basically, as a team, your search team would interview folks until they find the one they want to hire and then they would make a verbal offer and the board would negotiate the contract from there. Since we have little time, I'm going to move ahead real quick I so we'll take questions at the end. If I can just get through this one slide. I think it's important. The advantage to the contract search is that it is our most flexible process. There aren't rigid timelines. you interview people in these two weeks and you have to give us a ranked list on this day and then we help we figure out who your highest ranking matches and then you make an offer. It's not like that at all. It's very self paced. It's easier on volunteers than other types of search. The settled search takes hundreds of hours over the course of a year. And this is this is simpler than than other types of search. But the one I want to highlight is this last one contract to call, you can call a contract Minister, you cannot call an interim, you cannot call a developmental. But if you make a good match, and you're in ministry together for a couple of years, and you decide that you want to deepen the connection, you want to take it from that annually renewable contract relationship to an open ended partnership, where the minister's more of a vested partner in your mission, where you're not nervous every year, like, are they going to leave? Are they going to leave? I mean, they might. But there's a presumption that they'll stay a number of years with you after that call. We fully endorse the process that we lay out in the transitional ministry handbook as a great way to find settled ministry. And it's accessible and open to congregations who can do part time. So I just want to make sure you're aware that settled ministry is not closed off to you. If you're in a halftime or any kind of part time ministry search. It is open and available to you. All right, I think I'm going to close my slides. Well, I'll do one more. Real quick. I want to make sure folks have my contact information. cpurcell@uua.org. And this is our webpage where our our resources related to search are, please be in touch. If you're thinking about search, if you're in a search anytime I have open office hours every week for contract ministry searches. Always available by email. I'm happy to send calendar management links so you can put time on my calendar so we can meet. I'm holding all of the congregations in care that are in this contract search. You are not alone in thinking about part time ministry. I mean, as you can see from the participants today, so many, so many congregations are navigating that complexity and really the rich possibilities right alongside you. And you can count on our support as UUA staff as your partners and thinking about a faithful and sustainable way forward for your congregation.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai