Comments on: Excellence in Ministry

By: Lee

Lee — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:34:26 +0000

Just came across this post as I am researching online the maze of MFC requirements. I am just in the stage of applying to seminaries for next fall, and have received a lot of conflicting advice about what to do first, second, third, etc. in this process, just in the few minutes I’ve been able to capture for conversation with UU ministers or others I’ve sought out for guidance. At the very least, it is good to know that I’m not alone in thinking there is too little formalized support for UU seminary applicants and aspirants to the ministry!

By: Earthbound Spirit

Earthbound Spirit — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:25:07 +0000

With all due respect to Jim Hobart – and I do appreciate his discussion of UU ecclesiology, covenant and polity – I believe Tony’s main point was the need for more mentoring for UU’s in ministerial formation. To which I would add a loud “here, here!”

As a UU (in a church w/o a minister and at a non-UU seminary similar to LE), it was tough to figure out the bureaucratic maze. And unless you find a few friends who are a few steps ahead of you on the process, it’s easy to get lost. Seeing the RSCC is a good example – send in paperwork, schedule an interview, they give one a green light with a couple recommendations. Does anyone check on those recommendations? Anyone follow up? Anyone offer to listen to you if you have questions? No. It is still possible to go through seminary and internship with only one “how are you doing” check at the RSCC before seeing the MFC. The system is better than it was, but could be improved. Our UCC cousins have an in-care system that requires an annual meeting with a seminarian’s “care committee” (or something like that), and in-care seminarians are assigned mentors. Mentoring, I think, is a minimum for improving our own system. That – and adding seminars on administration and technology as electives.

By: James A. Hobart

James A. Hobart — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:18:24 +0000

I appreciate the basic point made here that we UUs have moved increasingly toward a bureaucratic/administrative view of ministry and supporting ministry rather than an ecclesiological understanding. The bureaucratic/administrative is the secular cultural direction, too, and therefore our church folks come into the church expecting this orientation and ministers schooled in management as first among their skills. The current love affair with policy governance on the UUA Board, in our districts, and in many of our congregations is the best example of this. I don’t mean to dismiss policy governance. However, administrative/bureaucratic policy governance runs amuck when it is not linked to our congregational polity ecclesiology. We all need to be as educated about our 400+ year history and traditions of congregational polity as we are about policy governance or any other passing fancy that presents itself for our consideration. I think that in most people’s minds congregational polity is reduced to the formula that congregations can do anything they damn well please because we UUs are self-governing. Indeed we are self-governing, but this is within a normative understanding of congregational polity grounded in covenant. Covenant is central and essential to our UU ecclesiology- our understanding of the nature of the church. Although increasingly we UUs seem to have amnesia about it, UUs are committed to live religiously by the promises we make to one another and to our understanding of what is holy in life. As James Luther Adams among others reminds us,the arc of our UU covenant is promise-making, promise-keeping, promise breaking, and promise-renewing. Whatever our passing bureaucratic/administrative practice, it should be compatible with this abiding covenantal religious understanding.
In this article I do find a confusion about the roles of the UUA (fellowship is an administrative/bureaucratic function), the UUMA (a membership organization of ministerial professionals), and the congregations (the only body authorized for the ecclesiological act of ordination). And, of course, there is the fourth body, theological education which takes place in schools independent (but one hopes cooperative) with the other three.
If budgets and gatekeeping have become more important in church and ministry than “scriptures” (be they Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, poetry, etc.) and James Luther Adams (to name only one), then the bureaucratic/ administrative understanding of church has clearly triumphed completely over an ecclesiological understanding grounded in covenant/promises. And, I would add, we have lost our way as a liberal religious movement. I am bold to assert that technological and administrative proficiency is not the most important ministerial proficiency.
Thanks go to Tony for opening this dialogue!

By: Lizard Eater

Lizard Eater — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:37:21 +0000

Yes, yes, yes! On all your points, including your last paragraph.

One district — I believe it’s the Mountain Desert District — has a mentoring program for those seminarians who aren’t going to a UU seminary. Sounds great.

From my experience … if you get the call, and you go to a church without a minister, and go to a non-UU seminary … boy, are you on your own!