FUSN Seeks a New Senior Minister

News

• Make Plans to Meet the Candidate

  • Check the schedule and sign up for events
    

• Meet Ministerial Candidate Erin Splaine

  • Read the Ministerial Search Committee's enthusiastic endorsement
  • Read Erin Splaine's letter to the the congregation

• Candidating Week: May 8-May 16

The candidate that the Search Comitteee has chosen to be our next minister will be with us for that whole week, preaching on both Sundays, May 9 and May 16th. During that week, all members and friends will have multiple opportunities to meet and get to know the candidate. We encourage you to do so. After that service, we will have a congregational meeting where members will vote on whether to call the candidate as our minister. The vote is an up or down vote.

There will be no other candidates on the ballot—that is what the UUA recommends. While our by-laws require a two-thirds vote to call a minister, John Nichols and the UUA have told us that ministers will accept a call to serve only if they get a favorable vote of 90-95% of the members who vote. — Jacqui James

• Update from the Ministerial Search Committee, Nov. 20, 2009
• See the Ministerial Search Packet and related documents below.

No choice is more important to the future of our congregation than its call of a new settled minister. The process is strenuous, exciting, and informative. The search committee invests hundreds of hours in getting to know each other, the congregation, and their ministerial prospects well, so the committee can make a recommendation that it believes is in the best interests of FUSN.

For ministry to be effective, both the congregation and the minister must sense a call, a felt conviction that this match is right for both.

The UUA supports the search process through the Transitions Office in Ministry and Professional Leadership. Their goal is to promote excellence in ministry by helping ministers and search committees to function at their best as they choose one another.

Please see the timeline that follows. Committee activities have been transparent with congregational input requested through October. In November, the progress toward bringing the congregation the very best candidate will be held strictly confidential. Assuming we find a candidate about whom we are enthusiastic, we will announce this candidate in late March or early April. In late April or early May, we will have a Candidating Week when all of you will have multiple opportunities to meet the candidate and hear the candidate preach. We will have a congregational vote on whether to call the minister at the end of Candidating Week.

The Ministerial Search Committee

Tom Bean, chair

Jacqui James, Margaret Costello, Margaret Rutenburg, Carl Metzger, Kate Mason, Brian Burba

Please note that some of these documents are restricted to FUSN members and friends. You must login to see them. Candidates, please ask for a temporary password from the committee.

Documents Prepared for the Ministerial Search

Search Timeline

Ministerial Search Packet

Addition documents:

1. Results of the Congregational Survey
2. Religious Education Prospectus
3. Orders of service before and during interim ministry
4. Policy for screening pre-candidates and for consulting a criminal background check on candidate
5. Completed application for Beyond Categorical Thinking program.
6. FUSN Annual Report FY09
7. Recent newsletters
8. By-Laws