The Real Late Term Abortion

One of the three doctors in the nation publicly willing to do late term abortions was murdered today, probably by a "pro-life" fanatic...murdered as he ushered at his Lutheran Church.

If nobody is pro abortion, then absolutely nobody is pro, "late term" abortions, abortions during the third trimester, abortions which happen after the legal age of viability. Most of these abortions are abortions of wanted, loved, even named babies, and they are caused by tragic circumstances. Nobody talks about them, few people defend them, fewer find a calling to provide them. When they happen they are tragedies, and the only good thing one can say about them is that because of late-term abortions, even greater tragedies are averted.

I found one woman's story of a late-term abortion here, and another story where late-term abortion was contemplated, here. I was once involved in a similar situation. It was a long time ago, soon after my own baby was born, and on the one hand, I hesitate to tell her story, but on the other, the world needs to hear these stories so that they can understand the need for this kind of medical care. I hope "C" doesn't mind...and I hope I remember all the details.

I met "C" in the pregnancy exercise program I went to, post-partum. She was still pregnant, and she discovered late in her 6th month that her baby had genetic abnormalities "incompatable with life outside the womb." The testing took a while, her shock and her husband's made decisions difficult. During those weeks every time she went out of her house people smiled at her pregnant body and sometimes even made small talk about her baby. It was...way too hard. They realized that they couldn't do this for three more months and decided to terminate the pregnancy. The baby was going to die probably during birth, certainly within a few hours. Why keep it on life support for three months...especially since 100% of the life support was being provided by my friend's swollen body.

The hospital ethics board had to be involved in this decision, since it was now in the third trimester, and that delayed things a few more days. In the end, they induced an early labor, and that worked. Technically, it wasn't an abortion, but surely they would have had to resort to that if labor had failed.

The baby did die during birth. The family had as planned, a bedside naming ceremony for her. She was held and loved by parents and grandparents until it was time to let her go.

And about 18 months later, I met their second child in the delivery room, and that was a special joy.

I have read that the doctor who was murdered today was an exceptionally gentle man who not only performed a difficult medical procedure, but who did so with compassion for parents in extremely difficult circumstances. May he rest in peace.

Justice is Never Completely Blind

There's a false idea left over from the Enlightenment which dogs our society in several ways; this week, it's in law.  That's the notion that pure rationality is possible and that, for instance, a good judge brings no bias into the courtroom and is capable of pure justice.    

So when someone digs up a statement by a Supreme Court nominee which suggests that a person with a certain kind of experiences (Hispanic, female), would be a better judge than a person with other kinds of experiences (Anglo, male) there's been a cry of racism from the right and "she didn't really mean that" from her supporters.

What really needs to be said is that of course she's right to point out that her conscious and unconscious biases and understandings that come from the life she's had will make her a better judge in some cases....AND that the understandings and biases of Anglo's, males, African Americans, younger and older judges and so on, will ALSO make them better judges in other cases, and the moral of the story is not that those observations are racist, but that they make the case for the importance of diversity on the Supreme Court.  Nobody is  purely rational.  

Pleased for you to know....

That Skinner House Press has released the book I've been working on for several years with Alicia Hawkins. It's a book of resources and session plans for small groups that want deep conversations about important issues.

We wrote it for UU congregations' Small Group Ministry programs, hoping especially that very small congregations would find this approach easy to manage. But we also imagined that families, women's groups, and book groups might benefit from these conversations.

The book's Website has more information, and you can order the book from the UUA bookstore. Every person in a group should have a book of their own, and there is a quantity discount.

The lack of Answers about Guns

David comments below that he feels much safer in places where people carry guns and is therefore against any kind of gun control. Also, he comments that since guns are so ubiquitous there would be no way to get all the guns out the hands of the "bad guys."

My thoughts, in no particular order:

It is certainly true that there are a lot of guns around, and that getting them out of circulation would be a massive, probably multi-generational problem. However, all that means is that if we want to end gun violence, we ought to get crackin'

I think it is worth noting that a pistol-packing public is of small use against these mass shooters; they are almost all suicidal and take out their victims too quickly for anybody to respond before damage is done. Many victims are children; surely we were not expecting them to have guns?

Also, although this has not yet happened, even in pistol-packing parts of the country, it's easy to imagine that would-be heroes firing at a mass-shooter could kill bystanders in the fray (there's a reason police practice through their whole careers) and further the carnage.

While it will no doubt be true for a long time, even if we do get crackin', that bad guys will be able to obtain guns, it is also true that (1) at least some of these mass shooters, like the last one, seem to have "cracked" and done their violence without the kind of planning that it takes to get contraband, and (2) the fewer guns there are, and the more illegal they are, the more likely that the authorities will be alearted to a here-t0-fore law-abiding citizen bumbling around in the underworld trying to get a gun.

It seems that these mass shooters have a sense, not only of rage but of entitlement; they seem to think that using guns is a natural and reasonible thing for an angry person to do. That sense of entitlement would also be reduced. If only criminals had guns, people who considered themselves ordinary, law abiding citizens would be less likely to resort to them.

Finally, I certainly agree with Robin, that this epidemic of angry, violent men must be tackled with understanding and social interventions besides gun control if we are to al live well together in this increasingly small world.

More Carnage

Today a man whose wife had told him she was leaving him up and shot his five kids, then himself. That'll teach her..and her sisters with uppity ideas.

The map of deaths caused by men who control "their" women by killing them would be, I imagine, without any green space, such is the rampant nature of this drearily familiar story. It happened in my very neighborhood, and, no doubt it has happened in yours. And it seems possible that at at least many of those deaths could have happened without guns, given the fact that few women can beat off an enraged man. But the idea of a man killing five of his children by, say, stabbing or strangling and then somehow doing away with himself without resort to guns...that staggers the imagination.

My map has a sub text. How many more will have to die because we can't find a way to control handguns in our nation? So I've added Mass Domestic Violence to my map. It's the red markers.

A Map of the Carnage

Three more "mass" gun deaths today...yet another man taking his disappointments out on the world. Yesterday it was 15 dead.

I've been thinking about making a memorial list of these kinds of deaths and I did it this afternoon on Google Maps. It's here. Because I'm especially interested in churches, I added the incidents from churches, even though "only" one or two persons died. Yellow Flags are incidents that happened in schools, red flags, religious institutions (there was one synagogue murder a few years back...it took place on Rosh Hashana)

It doesn't add up to many people; more died in traffic accidents every day than have died in these kinds of multiple, innocent death gun incidents. Many more died in war. And many, many, many more people have died in the routine, one-at-a time shootings which are the background noise of our lives. A jealous man, a robbery, an anger, an accident, and somebody is dead.

There is so much sadness and violence in our world. Widely available guns make it worse. How many markers on the map will it take, I wonder, before we decide to do something about it?

Multi Cultural UU: Removing Dissatisfaction

What might we do to make our UU Congregations more multi-cultural?

1. It is crucial to remove dissatisfaction factors as much as possible. I believe we have two major areas of dissatisfaction in the multi-cultural area. The first is the irritation to persons of color of clueless white privilege. That's an ongoing issue. The good news about it is that the school, corporate and governmental world has huge resources that are deployed here, and many of our folks get much better multi-cultural training at work and school than we will ever be able to provide.

2. Because of this, all attempts to be a multi-cultural congregation should be matched by attempts to be a younger congregation. With all due respect to the over 60 generation who got us started with integration in this nation, the future in this matter, as in so many, is with the young who have lived their lives in a multi-cultural world. My own experience in churches is that a concerted focus on bringing in young people will go a long way, all by itself, to bringing in persons of diverse ethnicity and race.

3. If there are incidents and issues, they need to be addressed, of course. People being people, there will always be issues and incidents. Discussion is necessary. Does the congregation want to put on "South Pacific?" Are there parts of that lovely show which are racist? Is there a difficult person whose conversation about social subjects like population or imigration boarders on racisit? How will we address that? Etc.

4. The second issue of baseline social comfort for those persons whose presence would signify multi-culturalism is that they need to see others like them. This is the critical mass problem, and it's a real catch 22. The only way for a church to be attractive to diverse persons is to already be a diverse congregation. But how to start? You start with signals. The UUA has done this part of multi-cultural development much better, in my opinion, than it has done the anti-racism training, but, oddly, it's never talked about. Still, go to the website of this denomination which sports a population of persons of color in the range of 5%, and you'll see a vastly disproportinate set of photos of persons of color. That's one way to help new persons of color feel legitimized and welcomed. The respectful, inclusive use of multi-cultural music and authors sends that same welcome message. Leadership of color is even more powerful. We have to give ourselves considerable credit here.

All of these strategies can be overdone, can even be a form of false advertising. But subtle use helps us to substitute for our critical mass of multi-culturalism, until we have it.

All that work, remember, only creates a baseline of lack of dissatisfaction. Now, on to Satisfaction. There enlies the transformative work.

Demographic Diversity in UU Churches II

Kim's comment (here) sparks a couple of thoughts about this issue. Firstly, I think that Kim is correct, that, like almost all of the rest of American society, especially in persons under age 60, who grew up and have worked their whole lives with this consciousness, we have mostly gotten beyond the easy-to-spot, easy-to-agree-upon racism and xenophobia of, say, 50 years ago. No small achievement, either. Yeah, us!

There is a fair amount of lingering subtle white privilege, however, and it's important to stay aware of it. White privilege is that assumption that "our way is the only way and others are different, odd, and ought to change." There is no necessary problem in the kind of human diversity of which Kim speaks...how close we stand, whether we interrupt, who looks whom in the eye, how much space is left between speakers, what time is "on time", and so on, the problems happen when some people (white people) don't realize that they need recognize those differences as legitimate and work around them when they are in mixed company.

Which brings us to church and what would motivate persons of color or other difference, to come to church and have to continue, even there, their dreary daily battle with the irritating obliviousness of white privilege, when they have every reason to prefer to go to church and relax with a community of people with whom they don't have to struggle. That is, what is the answer to the question, "Why don't UU churches, whose people think of themselves as open and welcoming, have more persons of color, and what would help us be more multi-cultural?

We have attacked this problem as a denomination from one direction; the direction of trying to educate white people to be less oblivious and irritating to persons of color. A lot of that education, unfortunately, has been ham handed, but we've done it. Has it helped? No doubt it has helped some, but not enough. And why? Because that kind of openness does not create satisfaction, it only relieves dissatisfaction.

This is a huge and important distinction in the "customer satisfaction" business, and it applies to many areas in church life, so let me digress.

There are factors in church life which create satisfaction; great sermons, exciting RE programs, warm community, opportunities for spiritual deepening. The more you have of these satisfaction factors, the greater satisfaction people will have, and they sky is the limit with how happy and enthusiastic they can be. But only if they are not dissatisfied.

Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction are two very different things, caused by completely different factors. A happy church-goer is both satisfied and not dissatisfied.

Dissatisfaction factors are basic things like enough parking, clean restrooms, safe children's programs and basic social comfort. (the sort a person of color might find in a diverse congregation not flaunting it's white privelege)

You gotta have enough parking, dirty restrooms a huge turn-off, and if parents think their kids are not safe, they're outta here. If a person of color encounters the assumptions of white privelege every time they turn around, they'll be dissatisfied. It is crucial to improve dissatisfaction factors, but...here's the key....an improvement of dissatisfaction factors doesn't make people satisfied, it only makes it possible for people to be satisfied. One too few parking spaces? That's a problem. Twice as many as you need? Ho Hum. Dirty bathrooms? disgusting. Palatial, sparkling bathrooms? I'm happy for you...but it's no more likely that I'll return to your church. Social comfort? It's vital, but if that's all you've got here, I could stay home.

May I repeat? "Social comfort? It's vital, but if that's all you've got here, I could stay home."


Given the fact that people come to church for more than baseline satisfaction, all our anti-racism/white privelege trainings, even if they were excellent, would only bring us up to baseline. And about that, it can only be said, "I don't get no satisfaction."

What should we do to become multi-cultural UU congregations? More Tomorrow.

Demographic Diversity in UU Churches I

Kim left this perceptive comment buried in a past post that I thought I'd bring forward here. Thanks, Kim!

I am working on an idea I have about "diversity". My idea is that, having gotten beyond the most obvious outer layers of racism and other prejudices, we are working on the more subtle parts. And, of course,the subtle parts are difficult to pin down because of their subtlety. My impression is that where we are stuck is that the real things that keep people of different back grounds from being comfortable with each other are the unconscious cultural differences in how we speak to each other and our world view. Those unthinking things like how far apart we stand when we talk to each other, how long we pause when we want to communicate that the other person can speak now, Whether we communicate directly or indirectly, whether we negotiate from specific to general or vice versa, how often we touch the other person while speaking. All these things are unconscious, "self-evident", and really annoying when someone does them differently because we interpret difference in custom as intended rudeness, or just strangeness. We get along with people who are more like us, we have communication problems with people who are less like us.
I think this level is where a lot of UU problems with diversity resides now. when I talk to people about this, many of them say things like, "I thought we were all the same." Or they don't say that and just imply it, if they are more indirect. It seems it's a hard concept to "get". That would seem to validate it being a problem.
I think we could work on this level of "diversity" to our advantage. Maybe it would help us achieve some more diversity in our congregations.

Sophie and Susie, age 1 month

They're starting to get feathers and are about double their 1 week size....takes two hands to catch them, now!

Giving Thanks for Max Coots

Twenty or so years ago, the Rev. Max Coots, whose passion was gardening wrote this beloved and much used meditation. Max died last week at the age of 81. We remember and give thanks!

LET US GIVE THANKS

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:
For children who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgve us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.

Let us give thanks:
For generous friends with hearts as big as hubbards
and smiles as bright as their blossoms;
For feisty friends as tart as apples;
For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers,
keep reminding us that we've had them;
For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;
For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants
and as elegant as a row of corn, and the
others, as plain as potatoes and so good for you;
For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts
and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes, and serious friends,
as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions;
For friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash,
as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini, and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you through the winter;
For old friends nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;
For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;
And, finally, for those friends now gone, who like gardens past that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter;
For all these we give thanks.

Let Us Give Thanks
from View from a Tree
--Max Coots

Rest in Peace, Max. You fed us well...

The Death of a Minister

Web Kitchell's memorial service was this afternoon, at the Santa Fe church which he served as settled minister for 17 years and as Emeritus minister for another 10. The church did itself proud. Stephen Furrer, the current minister, told us that Web had left a list of the music and hymns, didn't want any god-talk, and did want "droll stories" shared. So, that's what we heard. In lieu of god talk, I read these quotations from Camus.

I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

My colleague Jim Zacharias got to read from one of Web's coyote books, and there were, indeed, several droll stories. The best of them? The church administrator said that before Web arrived, the church had signed up for call waiting, but Web hated hearing the little beep of an incoming call while he was on the phone. He called it "telephonicus interruptus". They got rid of it.

The second best story? The Santa Fe church was a Fellowship when Web arrived, and they didn't like it when Web, still the New Englander, wore his robe. So it was suggested to his wife that she suggest to him that he might preach in a suit. (That's how things were done in those days) Web obliged, but in his own quirky way. Turns out that old New Englander didn't know how to put an outfit together. So there was the Sunday...judging by the laughter, some people remembered it...when he wore a green suit with a blue checkered shirt. The members suggested to his wife that she take him shopping. This she declined to do. "I married him as he is," she said. Web went back to wearing a robe and the congregation accepted it.


It was a lovely service. Rest in Peace, Web...good colleague, good minister, good man.

P.S. Was Coyote there? Well, I didn't exactly see him. But after the service, on the table of photographs Web's family had arranged, some thoughtless person had left a bag from Dunkin Donuts...

The Aftermath of Imagineering

It surely is great fun to have a big article in the UU World! (Imagineering Soul, in this month's issue) I've had emails and letters from members of my internship church, my first church, people at whose weddings I officiated, former members of this church, seminary buddies and even someone who thought he remembered me from Methodist Youth Group. (mistakenly...iMinister grew up UU and was way too shy for youth groups of any kind.)

Also a bunch of emails and even a phone call from people who liked the article and felt we were kindred spirits. Also, it goes without saying, a couple of people who hated it and needed me to know. One even went so far as to express the opinion that the real reason that the denomination is declining is that there are too many women ministers and women ministers just don't think or preach powerfully. It's been a long time since I heard that sort of thing. A professor from and Episcopalian seminary wrote to ask permission to reprint it for her students, someone wrote to remind me of another author's ideas about faith and shame, and her own, and someone sent me excepts from his book which he felt were relevant.

Great Fun!

Excellence in Ministry: Final Links and Comments

You can find the notes which others took at this event, here. (If you're new to this discussion, scroll back to late November to begin the conversation. iMinister was the official blogger for this conference.) They also promise more news and presumably the report which will be made to the June UUA Board Meeting, so check back.

With this, iMinister respectfully resigns from her first and most educational experience as a journalist. It's an almost pole-opposite experience from her usual role as a preacher; comprehensive rather than focused and attempting to be fair rather than subjective. She has renewed appreciation for the journalists in her life. She thanks the Pannel who asked her and who have been kind in their feedback and is appreciative of all the work and thought that has gone into this project and will continue, she hopes, in spite of economic constraints.

She's discovered that her general and career-long interest in ministerial well-being has developed into something of a passion about the process of credentialing ministers, and she intends to continue to follow that discussion as a private citizen, so to speak. To that end she wants to hold up again, a fascinating article from last Fall's New Yorker, which deals with the credentialing of teachers. It can be found here.

Imagineers of Soul

This month's UU World features my article, Imagineers of Soul, which is a version of last year's Berry St. Essay. I was so pleased that they published it; after spending a year's worth of creative energy on that Essay, it's awfully nice that it's getting a second life!

Eulogy for Web Kitchell

On my trip to Santa Fe, I thought about dropping by the Dunkin Donuts, purchasing a couple of dozen heart busters, and seeing if Web's Kitchell's friend Coyote would show up to converse with me. That's how Web did it, and he got three books of sermons out of the conversations he had. He called his books God's Dog, forever changing my view of these smart, adaptable animals. Web died last week after having a fairly miserable time with Parkinson's disease.

Well, no fairly about it.

Coyote would insist on the truth.

So, this is the truth. Damn, but that was a hard end for a good man and a good minister, and I've been missing him and his furry friend for a while now. No amount of donuts will get either of them back, and I'm sad. He was very supportive to the young minister with the unexpectedly hard job to the south of him, and oh, did my congregation love to hear him come and talk about his conversations with Coyote!

Happy Trails to you both!

Praying for the House

I offered a prayer to our State House of Representatives this morning.
I have strong feelings about public prayer. I was asked to lead the Representatives in prayer, and that's what I did; reminding them of their gratitude for our beautiful state, our democracy, our connections, giving them a moment to call to mind those they wished to pray for and asking a blessing on their work. No big deal.

But expressions of gratitude and appreciation I got suggested to me what my Santa Fe colleague confirmed, which is that too many persons of the cloth preach rather than pray, or pray only with and for persons of their own faith tradition.

I was glad to have offered something of value to hard working legislators!
And glad to see that the Domestic Partnership bill has had a sudden resurrection for this year's session.

Another conversation about excellence

....went on last year, when a list of core competencies for large church ministry was put together in anticipation of the "Thinking Big" program which is giving a small group of ministers advance training in Large Church ministry. Their work was published in the Alban Institute's "Congregations" last month and can be found here.

This list of competencies was formed with Large Churches in mind, but there's not much in it that doesn't apply to good ministry in every size of church.

Ministerial Authority

One of the interesting turns my career has taken in the past few years is exposure to seminarians, interns, new ministers, and lay persons who are taking on ministry roles. It's given me a new lens to look at my own ministry and has been a very enriching experience.

Among the things that it has made me wonder is whether it is a good idea to expect persons to have developed a sense of ministerial authority before they are ordained.

This is one of the things the Ministerial Fellowship Committee looks for, and when they don't find it their diagnosis often utterly baffles candidates who don't know what to do with this feedback. It's such a "I know it when I see it but can't explain it" item...which is to say, it is extremely subjective, that I've been uneasy with its increasing cachet among students who are, naturally enough, anxious to develop this mysterious ministerial quality.

I've reached a few conclusions about this.

One conclusion is that this quality does exist. It is related to feeling secure in the knowledge that you, in your ministerial role, have something of value to deliver and you know the conditions of delivering it. So you march right up to the boss nurse in the ICU and request the room number for the patient who, she says, won't even know you are there. You know that you and the patient and the patient's family need you to be there and you stand in front of her until she lets you be there. Since you know that your listening ear and someone else's ability to speak freely really has a healing effect, you help someone you know needs to talk to move with you to a private corner. Since you know that this fractious group needs to take a break and a deep breath, or that this scattered group about to eat together needs to be recalled to their gratitude before they eat, you take the risk of suggesting a break for a moment recollection of our deep values or grace and a recollection of our deep thanksgiving. That's ministerial authority.

A second conclusion I've reached is that while ministerial authority is a good and important thing, no ministerial authority is better...far better... than fake ministerial authority. Fake ministerial authority comes from a person acting the way they think they are supposed to act, rather than out of a deep knowledge of the value of their action. At worst, it comes from a person who is so in love with their role that they're over-eager to exercise it. They come across as self-important and give ministry a bad name. In its more common form, fake ministerial authority is an honest attempt to do what one understands one is supposed to do, but since it lacks the inner authority that makes the risk-taking work, it...doesn't work.

A third conclusion I've reached is that I started my career deficient in ministerial authority and I've developed it over many, many years. I started way young in this business, and I'm downright bashful by nature, and in the UU circles I grew up in, "ministerial authority" was not a valued quality...quite the opposite. I was fortunate to have the guidence of a lay leader who came from a long line of Baptist preachers in my early years in ministry, and who several times found ways to instruct me. ("Christine, Lisa (whose husband had died while they were vacationing) is coming home in a private airplane with Joe's coffin. You'll be meeting the plane, won't you? (significant pause) It will be in at 11pm. And then I've invited you both to drop by the house and visit a bit while my husband goes to her home and gets the lights and the furnace on. " Well...no, actually, it hadn't occurred to me that I should meet that plane. I'd been planning to call the next day, after the widow had had a good night's sleep. Clueless, clueless me! But when Frances spoke, I paid attention, learned, and through those experiences came naturally to believe that there are powers of healing and renewal that sometimes focus themselves in the relationship between a person and their minister, and that it's the minister's job to take the risk of reaching out to them and creating the conditions in which they can appear. I hasten to say that in spite of that developmental need of mine, the congregation thrived even with their very young, very green minister.

Therefore....

I'm coming to the conclusion that you don't learn much about this until you are a settled minister in a community. Internship and CPE might give some ministers a taste of ministerial authority, but then again, they might not.

Also.....

I think that one might have a general clue about ministerial authority...enough, at least, to navigate around a congregation, and not be able to come close to dredging this up in what is, for most candidates, the single most nerve-wracking hour of their career, their interview with the MFC. My guess is that very best that most candidates can do is fake it. That requires knowledge of a sort, but I don't think we want people to learn to fake it, or feel that they must fake it.


All of the above and other reflections are leading me to think that we have our whole certification process backward. It's the entry into Final Fellowship that ought to be the nerve-wraking one, where one demonstrates that one has figured out what ministerial authority is all about, can produce references and stories that demonstrate one's ministry as one has actually done it, where one has successes and failures to discuss and reflect on. The entry into preliminary Fellowship should be a much broader gate, perhaps a matter of UUA staff checking off the Candidate's To-Do list. Internship with generally positive feedback, CPE with generally positive Feedback, Degree, UU Experience (we should pay more attention to this than we do.) Reading List. Comprehensive Exam (we really need this!), Background check. References checked at least as well as a new employer would check them (including checking with persons not on the candidate's list.) If major questions came out of this check list process, perhaps an interview, but for most people, the interview would be at the time of entry into Final Fellowship, when one's success in ministry and development of ministerial authority could be more realistically judged.

UUA Presidency

iMinister came out in support of Peter Morales for president of the UUA months and months ago. She agrees with him that the UUA needs to see, not just a little change, but transformational change if we are to be healthy in this new era. She's sure that our dialogue about diversity has been woefully lacking in Hispanic voices, which Peter would bring, and she loves the energy and commitment to our shared enterprize which he brings to the campaign.

Here's what I mean.

In a candidate's forum, this question was asked.

Imagine five years have passed and imagine that your vision for UUism is fully alive and thriving. What three to five goals have been realized?

Here are their written responses.

Peter Morales ...
The goals that will have been accomplished in five years are intimately interrelated. The guiding vision behind them all is a revitalized Unitarian Universalist movement that transforms lives and that helps to heal the world. In five years we will have a new sense of urgency and excitement across our movement. The following accomplishments are manifestations of living out our mission:

1. We are growing at a rate of three percent per year. Growth is not the goal, it is the measure by which we determine whether we are meeting the fundamental human need for religious community. We are growing because we are doing a better job of welcoming the seeker, retaining our youth, and engaging our existing members. As we grow we are becoming more diverse in terms of race, class and culture. Our growth rate has tripled and is accelerating.

2. We are more engaged in the great moral issues of our time. As a natural outgrowth of a deeper sense of compassion and connection, we are a more powerful force for justice, understanding and environmental stewardship. At the local level, it means that more members of our congregations are involved in social action and public witness. At the Association level, it means that we are building on our tradition of public witness and that we have forged a new partnership with the UUSC on social action.

3. We have developed a strategic vision for ministry and are beginning its implementation. Our strategy for ministry has been developed through consultation with stakeholders. Our strategy is a comprehensive approach that includes recruitment, training, placement, mentoring and development of professional ministry.

4. The UUA staff has a culture of transparency, accountability and effectiveness. As a matter of course we evaluate our programs and our people. We learn from our mistakes. Our staff is more involved in being the means for sharing best practices and innovative ideas across congregations.

5. We are forming strong relationships with groups that share our values. This includes international Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist movements, public policy advocacy groups, the UUSC, and others.

---

Laurel Hallman's written response:

1. Our children and youth will participate in UU congregations as adults.

2. Our UUA endowment will grow to a sustainable level, and our dependence on its income for operating expenses will diminish.

3. We will wed our religious and theological future to our historical past, and will experience the power of that synergy.

4. The Free Spirit will become a source of inspiration, activism, humility and strength in our association.

5. Our alliances will enlarge our effectiveness in the world.

Reporting on the Excellence in Ministry Conference

The Rev. Sarah Lammert who attended the Excellence in Ministry conference as a delegate from the UU Minister's Association, posted her reflection on the conference on the UUMA Website.

Deepening Lay Theologal Education: Process

Other blogs are discussing the content of Lay Theological Education programs...the questions we'd like to have answers to. I want to think more about process; what kinds of programs might one fund to help people answer their questions?

I have three thoughts. Firstly, a set of Chautauqua-type programs that could travel to districts, clusters, camps and conferences. The ministers have their CENTER programs which do this; a different set of ministers offer to teach their specialty several times over a year to colleague groups. A similar program could be set up for Lay theological education, which might result in a blossoming variety of "Seminary for a day" programs all over the nation.

A second thought is to help ministers and others put together good distance education courses. iMinister has tried to explore this and found it beyond her geek-level. Universities, however, have developed platforms and taught less geeky (and more resistant) persons than herself how to offer knowledge in this new way. It just takes money.

Once there was a Seminary-on-line, experts of all sorts could offer on-line courses and study materials for anyone who wanted to partake, and for follow-up to those one-day Chautauqua programs suggested above.

Thirdly, I believe that the longing is not just for theological education but for ministerial education. That is, my guess is that people don't just want to learn theology, they want to learn ministry in order to be of service to their congregations. They don't just want lay theological education, the want lay ministry. And frankly, we need them.

Not all ministers agree with this, and there's not doubt that there are some really tricky pieces to the whole thing. But I think we ought to be thinking about this and looking the models other denominations have used.

Live-blogging NM-Mix

I'm at this conference on New Mexico new media conference. I'll soon be on a panel about building virtual communities, from which I expect to learn far more than I contribute. The keynote speaker is making the point that video games give a platform that teaches the skills of dealing with a complex world. Today's kids don't just go to theme parks, they manage them in their gaming world. This fellow is working with news organizations to quickly develop games that would teach people about the complexities of World Events. I can see it now... Mid-East Tycoon. Sim Global Warming. Very interesting...

I hope to have an opportunity to insert the idea that we need games for moral and religious education. We'll see.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

The Tyrrany of Excellence

You can find the excellent keynote speech from the Excellence in Ministry Summit here. It's well worth reading and very amusing, too! In it we may see ourselves as others see us...

Going Deeper

Doug Muder, at Free and Responsible has asked his fellow bloggers to give some help to the Task Force on Lay Theological Education.

That's the group looking into the gaping chasm between what most people can get at most of their UU churches by way of deepening their UU'sim, and going to theological school.

They've got a chunk of money to come to some conclusions and actually do something.

iMinister has a bunch of ideas about how that money could be used but that's not what he's asking for. He's asking for comments about what that cliff edge looks like. That's the place where people have come to understand Unitarian Universalism through sermons and a few classes, have grown in spirit through participation in worship, have served their church and want, well...more. But they are not ready or able or willing and might never be, to jump over the cliff and go to theological school. Or maybe they're unlucky as a young mom I just spoke to this week, to live in a state the size of New England which has not one theological school to its name.

iMinister can't speak to that condition personally. When she got that "deeper" urge she was a footloose and fancy free young adult she cheerfully jumped the chasm and landed in New England, and started Theological School. Worked for her, then. She totally gets it that it would be harder now, even for that same young adult, and that it would be impossible now, for the mom of a college-bound 18 year old and wife of the just-career-changed husband. iMinister was raised by Depression Babies, and unlike the rest of her generation, she has never shaken their teaching to be prudent about things like loans, bank accounts, and retirement savings.

Anyway, lots of people who want opportunities to grow in mind and heart in their faith don't want to be ministers. They just want more than their local church can provide.

Doug and the Task Force want to hear from you, dear readers. You can post comments on this Blog or you can go directly to his blog. The question, "What would help you go deeper? What do you want to learn, to do, to experience? What skills would you like to develop? What certification would you like to have?

The limits of Force

There are some fights you can't win. Even if you had all the fire power you needed (however you define fire power in your particular fight), if you used it, you'd destroy something too precious to you to make it worth it. So even though you might have every right to fight, you don't fight. Even though you really need what you might win in a fight, you don't fight. If you're angry and feel threatened, you master yourself and you don't fight.

This is a very hard lesson. But most people have to figure out how to learn it. Most nations have to figure it out, too. There are some fights in which no amount of force will get you what you want, need, or have a right to. You have to get those things in a slow, roundabout way. Sometimes the other party has to come to exactly the same conclusion.

It is usually perfectly obvious to bystanders when someone has started to destroy themselves in their quest to get what they need. It is rarely as obvious to the involved parties. And because the calculus of when, exactly the use of power becomes detrimental to the powerful is a very personal calculus, only the involved parties can actually know where the line is.

It's hard to watch.

Bumbling Ministry

A colleague is planning a book on long term ministry and is interviewing me. Interviews are one thing I don't do very excellently, so I asked for questions in advance. As I look them over, it suddenly comes to me that one thing that has allowed me to stay in ministry and stay in ministry in one place is a high degree of personal tolerance for bumbling....just the opposite of all this excellence-talk that we've been doing for the past two months on this blog.

Yep. Even after 30 years in this business, I feel pretty inept at many things I do, day after day. Leadership development? All I can say is that I try to let people do what they really want to do and fill in the gaps (and patch up the problems) that come. Stewardship? It's definitely not something we do excellently here and I'm not sure how to fix it. We specialize...perhaps even excellently, in chearful frugality. Building Planning? This is my third time around and I still find it messy and confusing and I've been very little help to our committee. Governance? See "leadership development." Staff management? Don't get me started. Pastoral Care? Never my speciality. I do the best I can. It's an important part of the job. Contemporary worship? Small Group Worship? As we start trying to do these thing I realize how very narrow is my realm of excellence. I can do really good worship in a sanctuary, with a hymnal, a pianist, a choir. The rest is bumbling. Now that four of our six weekly services are in the these non-traditional categories, I feel downright inadequate to the need.

Anti-Racism and Multi-Culturalism, the current darlings of ministerial competency? Well....I know a bit of the theory. I'm told we have a pretty multi-cultural congregation by UU standards, but it's mostly because we've been successful in drawing young adults who come by this trait more easily than their elders. How did we do that? I don't have a clue. I noticed it was happening, smiled at them, and dispatched our intern to see how we could help them organize themselves. Now they fill a section of the sanctuary, week after week. Teaching? I did a lot of it as a solo minister and assumed that people just didn't much want courses, these days. Now I have a colleague whose classes draw throngs. I can only assume that that's something he does much better than I ever did. I'm told I'm an excellent preacher, but I know, week after week, how flawed my contributions are. There's only so much time.

Now lest you think that this recital shows that my mental health is in jeopardy in this post-holiday season, please be assured that I have come to regard all of these non-excellencies as just the way things are and I am not deeply bothered by them. Obviously there's a gestalt of ministry around here that is working about as excellently as anyone could expect. We grew by 10% last year, both in membership and in contributions, yet another year on a growth spurt that has outpaced the growth of our city and has now topped 50% in the past 8 years. And in this hard time, the congregation almost doubled it's Fall contributions to the UU Service Committee and to our local Food Bank over last year, which I consider a sign of spiritual maturity that warms my heart. We've just had to add another service (The contemporary one I feel inadequate about) because we're bursting at the seams (and because I couldn't figure out how to initiate a building process 5 years ago when we should of...).

Which brings us back to tolerance for bumbling.

I think, especially in this generalist business of ministry, you have to be downright chearful about all the things you don't do very well, lest you sink under the weight of depression. It's probably important to have a speciality you cherish as your area of excellence. But in the long run, it might be even more important to give oneself a wide latitude for bumbling and trust in the Great Powers of Healing and Renewal to fill in the gaps and patch up the problems.

The impossibility of Excellence in Ministry these Days

Check out this link for a very interesting article from Internetmonk on the contemporary pastorate. (Thanks Chutney, for pointing it out!)

The author is an Evangelical Christian, but the first half of the article raises interesting general points about how ministry has changed in the past 50 years. The second half is much more specific to the Evangelical community but does make some interesting points about what he calls the pragmatic philosophy of Youth Ministry. Although it takes some major religious translation, I think that UU's were not immune from the downsides of this philosophy, which, crudely stated is, "if it brings kids and keeps kids it must be good." His objection is that it's not Biblical, our UU objection might be that it doesn't help kids on their spiritual journey and when they outgrow it, they depart from us, never to return. Of course, in our case, only between 10 and 30% of our kids even partake in our youth programing.

His claim is that Pragmatic Youth Programing has led to Pragmatic Adult Programing, and he's again' it all. An interesting point that's probably off the topic of ministry.

Freedom of the Pulpit

There's been ministerial interest in Freedom of the Pulpit again, so I've brought this post forward from July of 06, and added a bit to it.


iMinister defines Freedom of the Pulpit as freedom from advance censorship. This important doctrine exists to protect a minister from a demand that s/he "never speak of that issue" or "don't tell anyone what you believe about that." It exists because we cherish the integrity of the minister and because it is sometimes good for a congregation to hear things they don't want to hear.

Freedom of the pulpit doesn't belong to the pulpit, and you don't get it by virture of standing behind the thing. It is a trust bestowed on persons who are in covenant with the congregation to speak the truth in love, to honor the congregation's mission, to be fair, balanced, and wise etc. All called ministers, many hired ministers, and, if the congregational covenant is strong enough, members of the congregation can be said to be a part of this covenant.

Guest ministers are often granted Freedom of the pulpit by courtesy (If we didn't trust them, we wouldn't have invited them.) In my congregation, everybody else is asked to speak on a particular topic and, if there's any question about what they are going to say or how they plan to say it, we ask for a manuscript.

We do this more for reasons of quality and length control, than to censor their ideas, but neither I nor our worship committee would hesitate to disinvite a speaker who was not being truthful, loving, or productive about what they had to say. In practice, we mostly help people get their point across more effectively, rather than censor content, but I have done it once. (The speaker was a mile over the "no partisan politics in a non-profit organization" line. It made it easier that I could invoke the IRS on the matter and I managed to salvage the relationship.) We came to this policy after some difficult experiences.

A congregation will entrust its desire to hear many sides of the truth, spoken in many loving, careful ways, to its minister, worship committee or both. Those so entrusted must have and use some discression, because "Freedom of the Pulpit" is a principle meant to serve the needs of the people, not the egos of the mouthy.

"Freedom of the Pulpit", even for a called minister, does not mean that "you can't be fired for what you say, "

A minister who gets obsessed with one issue and preaches about it out of proportion to its importance to the members, who uses the pulpit to scold those who disagree, who preaches in a way that causes damage to the church's reputation in the community, and who does not speak responsibly about the pros and cons of the issues s/he talks about will probably be judged out of bounds of the covenant and can very appropriately be asked to make changes in their preaching subject, manner, and priorities. If the covenant stayed broken for long, the congregation would probably dismiss the minister by it's democratic procedures.

iMinister Reviews

Certainly the blogging highlight of my year was blogging the Excellence in Ministry conference. Sometime this blogging business seems like an exercise in journaling; quite solitary. I go weeks on this blog with no comments and only by studying my hit counter do I realize that anybody reads this blog at all. So it was a pleasure to be asked to blog the conference, and it was an even greater pleasure to be there. And, what fun...that hit counter went wild, with 4-5 times more hits than average for that week and my highest ever daily count, 350 readers on December 12. (average daily count is about 35...I love you all!)


The most popular single post by far, far, far and away, however, was the first post of the year, "How To Find Your Daemon", a meditation for the intergenerational worship service the week before, which focused on the movie, "The Golden Compass", and which, according to my afore-mentioned hit counter (which also tells me what google searches brought people to my blog) brought people to my blog week after week, all year long. Most of those folks were probably not UU's...hope they got an eye-full of liberal religion!.

February brought a post on gun violence, tragically refered-to in August after one of our churches saw yet another incident, which I discussed here.

There were a number of posts on what turned out to be the biggest tempest in a teapot of the year, checking of ID at GA.

And my single favorite story of the year, Our Pentacost Visitor.


But the biggest story of this year for our our world was the election, summed up, finally, in the post called, "Tears" If 2009 brings us even a fraction of the hopes of that night, it will be a wondrous year, indeed.

And may your year, dear readers, be also blessed and your lives and work be a blessing to you and those around you!

Buzz about Ministry

Two interesting additions to the conversation in the blogsphere about ministry, ministry preparation, certification and other areas of interest.

Politywonk has an important post about updating the overall ministerial ideal which comes to us from the Renaissance/Enlightenment.

And, there's a whole new blog devoted to the question of things to think about as we consider our ministerial certification processes. Calling Ministers is authored by a new minister who came to us with experience in Human Resources.

As I read his early entries, I reflected that this is a very difficult area to talk about. It's hard for the folks with left-over anger and pain to talk about without seeming bitter, it's really hard for the folks who failed to talk about, (and they usually leave us completely anyway) and it's hard for the folks who sailed through to talk about without seeming to brag. I think it's no accident that only a few people came to the conversation on certification at the EIM conference, and most of them came to listen rather than to talk, and yet the topic got a large number of votes in the non-conversational voting process. I'm glad we're talking.

New Blog from a UU Scholar

I invite you all to check out The Naked Theologian, a new blog devoted to "stripped down theology" by UU Ph.D candidate Myriam Renaud. (U.Chicago) Myriam is a deep thinker and a good writer, and she came out of the Albuquerque church, so we're right proud of her!

Starting Ministerial Education from Scratch

What a heady idea!

Here are a few things I've been thinking.

I've been thinking that our current model of: go away to theological school-go away to internship-leave internship for a fresh start as a new minister just has to go. It's a model that only works for the young, unattached persons for whom it was created. It worked great for me but doesn't work for persons whose spouses have careers, it doesn't work for people with school-aged children. This pattern means that many interns leave their spouses and even their children for nine months of internship, a situation that, I submit, is contrary to our values and to our best interests. Developing what amounts to three different support systems in the span of 4-6 years is extremely stressful even for footloose and fancy free seminarians. All this moving adds hugely to the expense of an already expensive education.

We're already starting to develop things like Modified residence and distance-learning experiences for Seminary, and this is helpful to many students. I think we should also start to develop some training-in-place options such as doing an internship in one's home church and allowing interns to remain on the staff of the churches they intern in.

There are two crucial and difficult keys to success at these innovations. The first is that we have to find ways to help people grow into ministry among people who know them as lay persons or as interns. Our current theory is that if a congregation has known you as a lay person, they'll never really treat you like a minister, and, if the congregation suffered through your internship clumsiness, they'll never really respect you. You have to move away to leave your old role behind.

Well...I've recently had experience with helping an intern move into a staff position (with all requisite special permissions etc.) and....it had its tricky moments. (Also tricky; I've been an internship supervisor who became, with a break of only a few weeks, the colleague of my old intern. There's no doubt about it...it was a transition.) But 15 months later, I think I can say with confidence that that's done. The transition has been made. I think others could figure out how to do this. And I think that it is even more likely that a person could transition from lay leader to seminary student to intern within one congregation. (I know...one issue is getting more models of church in one's experience. But many seminarians already have that in their life experience and anyway you could get that experience with well-planned trips and short residencies, and most of all from listening to colleagues and fellow students.)

The other, probably more difficult issue of allowing "in-place" transitions into ministry is the issue of boundaries. Can the home church be real with the seminarian's weaknesses? Evaluate their "favorite son" accurately? (I gather that most internship supervisors and committees don't do that well already, so perhaps this is a difference that makes no difference.) Will churches which have enjoyed their interns and need a new staff person be honest with themselves about what they really need for that new position and do the painful work of saying "no" to an intern who wants to stay? Our experience as UU's with these kinds of issues is not that good. But we already make so many exceptions to these rules that "granting waivers" is a significant part of the MFC workload. Perhaps we could simply develop some new policy that would aim to reduce the moves a student was required to make from 3 or 4 to 2 or 3.

Women and Excellence

I posted this document from the folks at Harvard Div School
a couple of weeks ago. It is a self-study from Harvard about their own efforts to educate fine UU ministers. Someone left a comment noting that all the research was on sole/senior pastors, leaving out an increasingly important category of ministers, those who serve on staffs (Assistant, Associate, Co-, MRE, etc.) The commenter noted that ministers are not well socialized to serve well on colleague teams, and I would certainly second that comment, note that our larger congregations require that skill set from all the ministers who serve them, and that our lone ranger ministerial culture permiates our lives deeply and not just in theological schools. Serving with colleagues is to be a square peg in a round hole every way you turn.

I re-read the document to make sure that the commenter was correct (s/he was) and found something else that needs comment.

For part of their study, the good folks at Harvard wanted to interview some "excellent" ministers to ascertain what parts of their education experience had been most valuable to them. How to figure out whom to interview? Here's what they did. "David Pettee surveyed several long-time Unitarian Universalist officials and asked them to give us a list of the ministers within the movement whom they would characterize as excellent."

They then compiled a list, apparently only by choosing all the names that appreared more than once. Although they note that they got a good sampling of ministerial tenure (grads from the 60's-90's,) and type of ministry (7 parish, two community, presumably the two UUA staff who made the cut) they don't comment about the fact that they interviewed 7 men and 2 women.

Now, the last I heard, our ministerial pool is more than 50% female and has been that way for a good long time. (10 years? 20?) So any research sample of ministers which is almost 80% male has to be questioned. Hello! Research 101! Sample demographics should match real demographics!

The fact that this was the sample used and that it was used with no comment is disappointing on three scores. First, one can intuit from the text that "longtime UU Officials" have a decided bias (STILL!!!!) towards a masculine norm in their, probably, off-the-cuff assessment of who is an excellent minister. This is not a big surprise, but it is the sort of dreary disappointment that confirms what one never wanted to bring to consciousness. You wouldn't necessarily expect them to review their lists to see if they had anything like a proportional representation of women and ask themselves if they were being real in what was probably a very informal process. Still it's a sad comment on the state of feminism amongst us, isn't it?

(Don't even think it might actually be the case that only 2 persons in a pool of 9 actually excellent ministers would be women. More than 1/3 of minsiters serving large churches are women, 1/2 of the "listening to experience" group of 12 ministers who had grown their churches significantly were women, there are plenty of women serving "Breakthrough congregations..." just to name three kinds of excellence that are easily quantified. The Excellence in Ministry conference participants were close to half and half male and female. Frankly, I can't remember the last time I was in a minority of 20% in any ministerial gathering that wasn't mostly Evangelical in 20 years.)

Anyway, I WOULD expect this kind of review of bias from a group of people doing RESEARCH at HARVARD, because, if this is not a huge sampling error, it sure LOOKS like a huge sampling error, and it needs explanation, if not remediation.

Is it a difference that makes no difference? Hardly. I'm only an informal expert on this subject, but every study I've ever seen suggests that there are profound differences in how men and women receive their education and go about developing in their careers and in what they most value from their experience. So, thirdly, this is a disappointment because I think a better sample would have given them better information for the current, real world, in which, last I heard, considerably more than 50% of persons in ministerial formation are, in fact, women.

Temporarly Wallowing in Exasperation and Disappointment,

Your (Female) Excellence in Ministry Blogger

Getting Around Inaugration Prayer Blues

I've been reading lots of commentary about Obama's choice of Rick Warren to pray at his inauguration this weekend.

I'm inclined to assume that this master political mind has good reasons for his choice...which might even be that, ministerless as he is right now, he'd be comforted on his big day with a prayer from a man he knows personally.

There are a lot of people who feel something between disappointed and victimized by the choice, though, and I wonder what the church can do for them. The solution we're working on at the moment:

Our local Inaugural prayer service. Being two hours west of Washington, we can schedule a noon service, record Obama's speech to play for whomever comes, bookended by our prayers for liberty and justice for all people. (and for peace, for good health and effective leadership for our new president, and whatever else anyone wants to pray for.) We think we'll then serve a quick lunch for those who need to go back to work.

It would be great fun if a whole network of local prayer services sprung up around the nation.

It Really Was the End of the Beginning

A preliminary report from the Panel on Theological Education, which put on the Excellence in Ministry conference, is that they had a major post-conference epiphany. With the help of their facilitator, they realized that the UUA's funding of theological schools and theological students was a broken and dysfunctional system and had been so for long enough that people were starting to withdraw from the conversation. In such a mess, it's not possible or useful to play the blame game, the only functional approach is to go back to the drawing board with fresh minds and hearts (and faces, it sounds like.)

With that they saddled their horses and fled home in front of the storm.

They meet again mid-January, and it's that meeting that next tasks in the eight selected areas will be assigned and a report crafted for the UUA board, which will follow the next weekend.

One of the interesting things about this conference was that it was as if it was two conferences being held at the same time; one about theological school funding and another about all the other topics; lay theological education, spirituality and ministry, certification of ministers, ministerial culture, anti-racism, and all the rest. It was the crisis in Theological School funding which engendered the conference, and I imagine that all of us who were spending most or all of our time staying away from that conversation knew that. (And I guess that epiphany was spot on; I stayed away because I didn't think I had anything to add to the impossible tangle it had become.)

I'm glad we're not going to try to fix what is apparently not fixable. I pray that we will have the creativity and courage, flexibility and independence to find and take a new road through this very high mountain called Theological Education.

I also hope that those other seven areas find good homes and innovative leaders, and that a conversation continues among all these layers and centers which create and nurture the leadership of our precious faith.

It's Christmas?

It seems to be, suddenly, the busiest season of the minister's year. So no more Excellence in Ministry for a while. But for those with an insatiable appetite and an interest in the problem of predicting excellence (or even competence) as persons enter ministry, check out this very engaging article from the New Yorker on the problems of predicting excellence in entry-level quarterbacks, financial professionals, and teachers!

Theological Schools/UUA Relationship: Money

Money concerns ranged from a concern that new ministers take on huge debt which impacts their careers, choices, and ability to serve congregations, to generosity building in our movement in general and the equitable distribution of the resources we do have. The point was made that in spite of that huge debt load, no theological student pays more than 40% of the real costs of theological education. Theological schools give hugely to denominations!

There was concern that "theological education" is larger than M.Div, but includes lay education and ministerial continuing education.

The point was made that two of the greatest weaknesses in faith communities are poor theology of stewardship and poor theology of institutions. (in that case, no wonder our theological school are suffering!)

Congregations are generally disconnected from theological schools; often don't know what schools their ministers attended and usually making no contribution to schools.

There was considerable discussion about the fact (apparently seen across denominations) of persons entering theological school without deep connections to congregational life. (just as many new members of churches don't have deep connections to a denomination) How should that fact be handled and remediated?

There was concern expressed that as a whole UU community we do not have a shared vision for theological education and that it's not clear who would appropriately articulate such a vision. Such a compelling vision would assist in fund-raising.

This second conversation recommended that this vision be created.

Also that other paths for support of theological education be developed and supported.

And that the UU theological schools and the theological schools educating the largest groups of UU students put time into their relationships.

Scattered through the notes like little chimes of warning were comments about the failed attempt to merge the two schools about 18 months ago. That was the subject of the next conversation and will be the subject of tomorrow's notes on this blog.

Excellence Documents

Readers might be interested in this document, from Harvard Divinity School, of a small research project related to Excellence in Ministry at that school
Report to the Panel on Theological Education

Excellence in Ministry: Theological School Conversations

Our instructions at the Summit were clear and repeated: Go to the conversations where you have energy, not where you think you are "supposed" to go.

Therefore, I didn't attend any conversations about the Theological Schools' relationships to the UUA. However, they were the largest and longest conversations and they apparently bore considerable fruit. I want to share with you my sense of what happened there, mostly from the notes taken, but also from conversations at breaks.

The first conversation began, I gather, with an appreciative inquiry approach...what's right between the schools and the UUA? Among the comments:

There is good partnership between UUA staff and schools in curriculum development, there is some financial sponsorship of schools through the Pannel on Theological Education, there is coordination between Fund raisers at UUA and the schools in approaching large donors, and there is a good relationship between the UUA and at least some non-UU theological schools.

Perceived problems have been, among others,

There's a lot of painful history to get over.

1. The realtionships between schools, UUA, and funding sources don't seem "natural".
2. UU students are aware that their denomination is not supporting them at the same level that other denominations support their students.
3. The schools feel that the UUA has mandated that they be very engaged in Anti-Racism etc. work but they have not always felt supported when they had resistance to doing that.
4. There's a gap between the schools (uu and non uu) and the needs and understanding of congregations.

Goals:

1. The assembled group wanted to be partners, not competetors in the process, to create
2. more UU scholars (Ph.D students),
3. to have a bigger "pie" of financial support to divide up,
   
4. and to have more exciting and creative conversations about ministerial preparation.

Three areas for continuing work were Accountability, leadership needs, and "the pie."

Quick report on the end of the beginning

Prioritizing done, we met for preliminary conversations and a chance to sign up to continue to work on the areas that interest us in the 8 chosen areas. Some of the "near miss" areas were noted and incorporated into the chosen areas. The group shared a few thoughts about the whole process, and then we had another of the very excellent worship services which punctuated our work together.

All the information we generated was turned over to the Panel who continue to meet today. All the participants have been invited to continue this conversation by adding their reflections and I hope some will.

Some final thoughts from the group conversation

Every conversation that happened was important. Every connection made was important, and we won't know all the benefits and outcomes of this meeting for some years. The "winners" were the conversations which seemed to need focus and attention to carry them forward at this time.

What surprised people about the final list

The focus on spiritual grounding was a nice surprise. The depth of discussion and willingness to take spiritual risks was an unexpected and wonderful part of the two days.

The non-focus on anti-racism by the white people at the summit was an unpleasant surprise to those persons who did focus on this area, who were surprised that this was one of the subjects that made the final cut. There was more doubt expressed about our denominational readiness to continue to work in this area than in other areas, and this sadness and disappointment cast a shadow on the last discussion.

There is some interest in discussion of our theme speaker's comment that anxiety about excellence tends to arise when there is some other problem that is being avoided, but we were out of time before that was vocalized.

There was disappointment that children and youth issues didn't make it into the final cut of next steps. There was hope that the needs of children and youth (and adult needs for the voices of children and youth) would be folded into each of the projects that are undertaken.

In informal conversations I head the same thing expressed about mentoring, internships, and recruiting for ministry. Since those fit into the areas I'm most interested in myself (depth and maturity in ministry, ministerial culture, and the certification process, I intend to keep that in mind.

As I wandered around looking at the comments in all 8 chosen areas, I thought I saw that most groups had taken the conversation to heart and had noted places where their subject intersected with children and youth affairs, and our multi-cultural work.

There was a final discussion about how to keep this work transparent and available to everyone who wanted to see it but final details on that are being worked out today. Stay posted!

With thanks to the able facilitator, the staff of University Unitarian who kept us comfortable and
printed mountains of paper, the cooks who fed us extraordinarily well and the worship leaders who nourished our spirits, I fly home to sunshine and to Christmas.

And the winners are...

Wow, that was fast. These are the clear areas of excitement in the interest/importance voting the group just completed. The winners are:

1. Lay Theological Education (diaconiate internet resources)

2. Fostering emotional maturity and spiritual depth in ministry

3. Right relationship between UUA and Theological Schools.

4. Collaborating for collegiality and continuing education

5. Anti-racism, Anti Oppression, Multiculturalism and Resistance

6. Ministerial Culture, Credentialing Process, and Growth

7. Whose are We? (deep conversation about spiritual experience)

8. What is the nature of the church we are planning for?

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Some Recommendations that Caught My Eye

Now we are at the part of the process where we are reading you don't want to know how many pages of notes from the discussion groups. Each group was also supposed to produce some recommendations. We are going to vote on which discussions we think are the important ones to follow up on.

Here's a list of the recommendations that caught my eye. They have not been voted on, and not even I think that these are the most important things to follow up on. They just caught my eye.
Be not attached...things will no doubt change as radically and quickly as the Seattle weather is about to change....

We need to create a space for testifying to the spirit of our faith in our personal lives.

We need to add suffering and failure to our theological understanding

We need to support multi racial and multi-racial adoptive families. There are resources for retreat programs on DRUUUMM website.

Enrich our ministries by having conversations about holy experience/transcendence with colleagues. Allow ourselves to be more vulnerable.

Talk about our holy experiences/sense of God in our congregations and with our congregations. Model this so they can do it too.

Review the Fellowshipping Process top to bottom. Look for unintended consequences of the Fellowshipping process.

Look at Asistant/associate ministers situation. Produce a best practices document. Do more training of ministry teams in teams.

look at the culture among ministers which discourages entreprenurial ministries.

Allow ministerial internships at camps and conference centers.

create more spirituality-based education for youth beyond youth group.

About three dozen recommendations from the three or four groups which discussed the relationship between the theological schools and the UUA. To summarize boldly: Let the past go and get going on the future.

The Enlightenment is over. We don't quite know what is coming next, and it is heartbreaking to watch it die. But if we want to be relevant, we have to move, too.

It's not enough to be a learned ministery, we need to be a learning ministry.


Enough for now! By the next post, we'll have started focusing in.

Another voice on Excellence

Ministrare

Notes on the Keynote

Notes from the president of the American Theological School Association, Dan Aylshire

(notes mean...please don't expect complete sentences or criticize my spelling!)

He works with schools diverse on every end of a dozen continua. What they all have in common is that they talk about excellence! What, then, could this word possibly mean?

Excellence might be one of those terms that everyone uses because nobody knows what it means.

The word "excellence" can be a proxy for the way things used to be done. The word most often hurts minorities, women, and newcomers. It can be a word that is really used to exclude rather than to increase quality.

But what's the alternative? How could we mount a campaign for, say, mediocre theological education?

two questions:

1. Why are so many people asking about excellence right now? He's speaking next Fall on this same topic to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and The Lutheran's Missouri Synnod.
We don't ask this question when things are going well. We only ask when things are falling apart around us and have to be re-built. He suspects that concern about excellence is a way to get at some unspoken issue. He wonders what our "real" issue is.

2. He comments that we most often calls ourseves a "movement," rather than a denomination. He remarks that we share this sensitivity with the Assemblies of God and wonders what we have in common with them? His suspicion is that we're both anti-institutional.

Excellence has to have a definition that transcends the individual and serves the community.

(This man groks us....)

His perceptions about excellence in ministry

He is professionaly committed to excellence in ministry. He's a church man. He knows the pain that less than excellent ministers can bring to churches, and the pain that toxic churches can cause even the most excellent ministers.

His guide for thinking about excellence in ministry comes from his Association of Theological School guidelines.

the goal of theological studies should be deepening the aptitude for theolgical reflection that results in responsible life and faith. (paraphrase)

Ministerial work requires skills and abilities, but must be undergirded with wisdom.

Ministry is not a group of skills, it is who a person is as a human being.

Seminary grads do not come spiritually and morally mature; that's a lifelong journey. The journey is necessary to ministry.

They need a certain body of knowledge about religious topics, not just as information, but as useful, integrated wisdom.

They need to know how to do some things that are a part of ministerial practice...public speaking, counseling, working with volunteers etc. These things can't be taught in isolation. They are integrated with each other and with the above integrated wisdom and journey.

Ministers with great spiritual sensitivity can lack theological sophistication
Ministers with great intellectual ability can lack person skills
Ministers with great skill and ability can fail for lack of humility.

Excellence is not, therefore a matter of piling up certain kinds of skills and knowledge, it is the integrated whole of it all.

If that's a good definition of excellence, how do we do theological school?

Theological education is deeply dependent on two kinds of learning

1. classroom teaching. (the classroom is a nearly universal learning envrionment...ordered, safe, transformative, attached to a learning plan called a curriculum)
2. contextual learning. (challenging, disordered, chaotic, blurring of categories. This is, after all...life.) (Just the sort of damned learning experienced that civilized, ordered learning experiences try to spare people.)

Both of these are necessary and they require schools to multi-task, to get both kinds of learning integrated which is the goal of theological education.

The place of Theological Schools in Theological Education

(besides the training of religious leaders)
We need teachers and centers of study.
We need a place where the overall story of a movement can be looked over and critiqued
We need a place of research to help us continue to reinvent ourselves.

The education of leaders is a function which any theological school can provide

(He comments that as he moves around the theological school world he notes that any school that wants to brag to him about their open-mindedness makes a point of telling him that they have UU students.)

The second function of a theological school is to provide connection shared culture. It is more difficult for a school to provide this to any one movement. To have connection and shared culture, there has to have a critical mass of students.

He tells of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (the liberal splinter of the Southern Baptist wars of the 1980's) The designate some schools are educational partners, serving by educating some pastors.
Some of their schools were "identity partners" . Some theological schools need to think of their mission as contributing to the denomination as a whole, to worry in the middle in the night about the health of the denomination. (Here's a transformative idea!)


He quoted from a review of a book either by or about Unitarian Ted Sorrenson, speechwriter for John Kennedy. (this will be a paraphrase)

Once, Kenedy asked Sorrenson if any of his Catholicism was rubbing off on Sorenson. "No," said Sorenson, "but I think my Unitarianism is rubbing off on you." Sorrenson believed that he was bringing his own faith into the drafts of speeches he wrote for Kennedy and more and more, Kennedy was being swayed by his thinking.

Alshier concluded:

Somewhere along the way, Ted Sorenson was influenced by some ministers, by Unitarian Universalism.

Maybe excellent ministry, extended by an excellent mind, made our nation more human, at least for a time."


Questions:

Please comment about the pros and cons of having a majority of ministers coming from multi-faith schools vs. denominational schools?

All faith groups are experiencing this. The phenomena of second career ministers means that most people must attend the closest seminary. We're not alone in our problem.

One need of a religious leader is to be deeply imbeded in their community of faith. (roots). One way to get roots, especially for a person who didn't grow up in the faith or have more than one congregation, is to go to a UU theological school.

Another need is the ability to relate to the whole world. Some people need that experience, especially those too embedded in the UU tradition. (wings)


Question: What would be the effect on the UUA if one or more of our historically related schools closed up shop?

Answer: Theological schools are massively stressed by current economic issues. Some may not make it. This tiny movement has two schools that reflect different parts of the movement, in different parts of the country. He believes we are not over-supplied with theological schools and we would lose more than we would gain by losing one of them. Those two schools don't just educate leaders. They hold identity.

Questions: Can you give us good models of healthy denomination/theological school relationship?

Answer: I've got more bad examples than good ones. One good one is this: Historically Black Theological schools, for instance, just did a big research project on the Religion and the Black prison experience. No predominately White school could have done that research and it was needed. He also spoke of Quaker and Mennonite seminaries as well connected. The model: a story of mutual support and worry. It's all in the family. Appreciation of that connectedness.



A joke to end: (Garrison Keillor just remarked that he identified as an Episcopal, but he's "more piss than capol")

Sleeping on it

A new morning dawns (really late up here in the north country!)

I have been thinking about the really compelling parts of the conversations I was in

(And I repeat my invitation for other participants to email me their thoughts for posting, because I could only be in three of the 20 conversations that went on!)

I have been remembering the sheer excitement of talking with others about how to serve lay people who want more depth and learning than Sunday morning or adult ed can provide. I got back in touch with my enthusiasm about retreats and conferences. I loved someone's idea about "Seminary for a Day" cluster programing. I suggested that one good use of a little pot of money would be for someone to investigate distance learning (internet, mostly.) Colleges do a lot of this. So could our best ministerial and lay teachers but I know from experience that you have to have the right platform and you have to know more than I know about how to use it. If the UUA could help us figure this out, the courses we provide could be available to everyone. We also tossed around pros and cons of having some kind of UUA-certified para-ministry/deacon/elder/wise lay person program...something to challenge and then certify persons who have already been the president of their congregation, advised the youth group, and been to leadership school and feels a real yearning towards ministry of some kind but not a call (or ability) to enter seminary with its debt, uncertainty, and moving away, eventually, from their home. There are some very exciting possibilities, as well as shoals, to navagate there.

I have been remembering the conversation about fostering spiritual depth and emotional maturity in ministers. You can't force that river. depth and maturity are moving targets; they involve the ability to suffer, reflect on, survive and celebrate what is happening in your life, and these experiences happen as they will. One thing I learned was that the program of offering therapy grants to ministers to help them with the above has returned.

And I have been remembering a conversation about our certification process; that terrible connundrum; you have to have standards. Are our current standards the right standards? Are we able to discern what we have set ourselves to discern with the processes we use? How do we get recommendation-writers to be truthful and, well, discerning? Is it possible to have an effective threshold that does not leave those who have to cross it feeling angry, hazed, or misunderstood? Big questions.

Impressings from a long day

We had four 90 minute small group conversations around the topics below, and after dinner, we got together to share impressions.

One of the largest conversations was the Right relationship between UUA and theological schools, which went on for two sessions and is schedueled for another one tomorrow. There's a lot of energy around this presenting problem.

Some other comments from people about "ahah moments"


"Uneasiness there we don't all know the back story between the PTE and theological schools"

Not "Excellence in ministry" but "soul-satisfying ministry."

There's a core base of UU knowledge and identity that we want our ministers to have.and ..lots of ideas about how to impart it.

An individual's pride in being an excellent minister can be an obstacle to relationship.

Surprise (from a lay person) at lack of accountability structures/support/supervision for ministers in final fellowship.

Our language conflates the act of ministry with the title minister

Frequency and passion with which people talk about the need to deepen spiritual practice.

Importance of transformation

We have a ways to go before we can authentically raise the issue of diversity and pluralism in our congregations.

There's a difference between welcoming (persons of diverse race, ethnicity, etc.) and acting on their presence.

Low expectation for spiritual leadership to come from anywhere but ordained leadership.



As to my impressions, I have to say, I have rarely spent such a pleasurable day. Deep, respectful conversations with people who care about things I care about...how could you go wrong. Even defending my perceptions of our certification practices (MFC) to a skeptical audience, while not fun, seemed important and fruitful.

I was a part of a conversation on ministerial culture, including the culture we create with the ways we evaluate candidates, a conversation about fostering emotional maturity and spiritual depth in ministry, and a third which was called "Lay Theological Education," but which was really about the resource gap for persons who have taken all their congregation's adult ed, but don't want to go to theological school. That was an exciting conversation. But they were all good.

But speaking of skepticism, it's hard for me to imagine that these free-floating conversations are going to produce outcomes that will increase excellence in ministry. Oh, me of little faith. I'm suspending my disbelief, as I've seen this facilitator bring an even more confusing conversation to a fruitful end once

Tomorrow will tell the tale