FirstU Ottawa Search for Settled Minister
About the Search Process
Reverend Pat Guthmann Haresch will be leaving our congregation next summer, after completing her 3-year term as First Unitarian’s Developmental Minister. The Settled Minister Search Committee has been tasked by the Board of Directors to find our next settled Minister, who will begin in August 2021.
This year-long process started in Spring 2020, and involves many steps (see below for a list of these). During the Fall, the Search Committee is conducting a Congregational Survey and Focus Group sessions. These will gather statistics and information that will help the Committee understand the congregation’s preferences concerning our next settled Minister and what that person needs to understand about us. The Committee will also host a Beyond Categorical Thinking workshop designed to help the congregation: consider its hopes, expectations, and concerns for a new minister; learn more about the ministerial search process; and explore how thinking categorically about people sometimes interferes with choosing the best candidate.
“No choice is more important to the future of a Unitarian Universalist congregation than its call of a minister. A thorough, uncorrupted, and mutually respectful search process is the essential first step in the hoped-for partnership of lay and ordained leaders. For both minister and congregation, the process is strenuous, exciting, and informative. It can also be frustrating and discouraging. But generations of lay leaders and ministers testify that such a process, followed well, richly repays the time and effort it requires.”
~ UUA Settlement Handbook 2017, p.7
About the Search Committee
Selected by the Nominating Committee, the Search Committee is made up of 7 members. We are blessed to have a diverse group of women and men, younger and older, retired and working full-time, from various walks of life. The work of Search Committee will represent a team effort. Below is a picture taken at our weekend retreat on July 10-11, 2020.
Left to right: Phil Nagy, Mary Ella Keblusek, Mike Lloyd, Jodi McIntosh, Jane Lindsay (chair), Amy Bérubé (holding baby Evan who also attended our retreat!), and Lena Talback
The retreat was facilitated by Rev. Stephen Atkinson, a retired UU minister assigned to us as a Transitions coach by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Goals of the retreat included getting to know each other better, building trust, learning about members’ respective skills and interests, developing a basis for making decisions, and planning how to seek input from the congregation.
11 steps of the Minister Search
Reverend Pat Guthmann Haresch will be leaving our congregation next summer, after completing her 3-year term as First Unitarian’s Developmental Minister. The Settled Minister Search Committee has been tasked by the Board of Directors to find our next settled Minister, who will begin in August 2021.
This year-long process started in Spring 2020, and involves many steps (see below for a list of these). During the Fall, the Search Committee is conducting a Congregational Survey and Focus Group sessions. These will gather statistics and information that will help the Committee understand the congregation’s preferences concerning our next settled Minister and what that person needs to understand about us. The Committee will also host a Beyond Categorical Thinking workshop designed to help the congregation: consider its hopes, expectations, and concerns for a new minister; learn more about the ministerial search process; and explore how thinking categorically about people sometimes interferes with choosing the best candidate.
“No choice is more important to the future of a Unitarian Universalist congregation than its call of a minister. A thorough, uncorrupted, and mutually respectful search process is the essential first step in the hoped-for partnership of lay and ordained leaders. For both minister and congregation, the process is strenuous, exciting, and informative. It can also be frustrating and discouraging. But generations of lay leaders and ministers testify that such a process, followed well, richly repays the time and effort it requires.”
~ UUA Settlement Handbook 2017, p.7
About the Search Committee
Selected by the Nominating Committee, the Search Committee is made up of 7 members. We are blessed to have a diverse group of women and men, younger and older, retired and working full-time, from various walks of life. The work of Search Committee will represent a team effort. Below is a picture taken at our weekend retreat on July 10-11, 2020.
Left to right: Phil Nagy, Mary Ella Keblusek, Mike Lloyd, Jodi McIntosh, Jane Lindsay (chair), Amy Bérubé (holding baby Evan who also attended our retreat!), and Lena Talback
The retreat was facilitated by Rev. Stephen Atkinson, a retired UU minister assigned to us as a Transitions coach by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Goals of the retreat included getting to know each other better, building trust, learning about members’ respective skills and interests, developing a basis for making decisions, and planning how to seek input from the congregation.
11 steps of the Minister Search
- Settled Ministeri Search Committee selected
- Search Committee meets with Transitions Coach and plans its work
- Search Committee holds retreat (this year done in combination with #2)
- Congregational Survey distributed and tabulated
- Focus Groups held with various groups in congregation
- Beyond Categorical Thinking workshop held with congregation
- The extensive Congregational Record and information packet about our congregation are completed and made available to ministers in search
- Search committee begins considering potential candidates
- Search committee interviews 3-4 “short list” candidates in more depth
- Search committee recommends one candidate
- Candidating week in which congregation meets and votes on the proposed candidate / minister
