The first signs of the much rumored minister shortage may be appearing.
Look at Opportunities in Ministry. This is late May! How many of those congregations will have an interim by GA? Not enough applications for interim positions to fill them.
Many small and potentially great congregations outside of commuting distance to Boston had only a few applications for their settled positions. Some are going into a second year of search hoping a good prospect will apply.
Most aspiring newly fellowshipped ministers have a hard time finding their perfect settlement, but that has always been the case. James Freeman Clark went West not because he was a pioneer. He needed the experience to compete for all the little First Parishes back home.
May 2006 Archives
From the publisher, the book will be published in August. Faith Voices for the Common Good is working to build up pre publication publicity.
From Elaine Pagels's Beyond Belief to Jim Wallis's God's Politics, investigations into the relationship between the historical foundations of Christianity and the role of religion in today's world have risen to the top of bestseller lists. Obery Hendricks, Jr., who was Pagels's student at Princeton Theological Seminary, adds an important new voice to the ongoing discussion in THE POLITICS OF JESUS. Filled with riveting, original insights, it confirms Cornel West's declaration that "Obery Hendricks is not just on the cutting edge, he's the knife."
Focusing on a powerful but little-examined aspect of the Gospels, Hendricks portrays Jesus as a political revolutionary whose teachings are meant to lead the way to freedom from the tyranny of principalities and unjust rulers in high-and low-places. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus employs various tactics to address the social, economic, and political conditions of his day and exposes the terrible effects of oppression and poverty on the mind, body, and soul.
In an in-depth examination of Christianity's history, from its foundation through the time of Paul to the reign of Constantine to the present day, Hendricks traces how the church became a hierarchical structure, protective of the powerful and intent on maintaining the status quo. THE POLITICS OF JESUS recaptures the revolutionary implications of Christianity, and calls on Christians to embrace anew the core values of Jesus' message and restore his fight to alleviate the suffering of underprivileged and abused peoples.
I have been using Macintosh computers since 1984. I even worked with a Lisa. It was 1986 before I could afford to have one at home, and 1988 before I had an external hard disk. I kept that machine going until 1996. Then I got a laptop, an black thing that connected to a Monitor through a docking device. It was my first internet machine. I have expanded my skills since then, and my desires for a faster machine, with more hard drive storage. Its the images and videos that eat up hard drive space. Twenty years of writing is less than a gig.
Marjorie and I share a desktop machine (IMac G5 20 inch display) and we both have 12 inch notebooks. We are thinking about upgrading to the notebooks, since we have run out of hard drive space. The new lower cost MacBook has everything I need, upgrade the RAM and the Hard Drive, and it be faster than the Desktop.
My present notebook will keep on working, so there is no need to replace it to keep doing what I am doing. But to have a hard disk four times as big as the one I now have and battery life that is twice my present battery life and processing speed four times my present clock speed is tempting. But would it make me a better poet?
But the prices are going down. This thing cost half as much as that 512 megabyte RAM Mac plus (with a floppy drive) that I bought in 1986, and one fifth as much as the Lisa (which had a small hard drive.) My first Laser Printer (the non profit I worked for bought it) cost more than my car. My present one is smaller, but has higher resolution and cost me less than my monthly auto insurance bill.
I drive about 350 miles a week. I try to use a bicycle for local trips. But the raise in the price of gas makes for a 100 dollars a month extra.
Next year I will be living in a city that has public transportation. Not like Boston or NY, but it is doable. And it will be much more bike friendly.
Theological Students who go to Starr King and Meadville probably already know this, but I find that candidates for the Unitarian Universalist parish ministry who are preparing outside the denomination schools sometimes miss this advice: have a packet ready to send as soon as the Ministerial Fellowship Committee grants preliminary fellowship.
I sent my first packet out to a search committee in November seven weeks after I saw the MFC, I received my M.Div in May of the next year. I learn from engaging in the process, so actually being in the search and doing pre-candidate visits educated me. Being in the search is a formative experience in becoming a minister.
But packets are best when they are developed over time. The last minute throwing together of sermons, and rites of passage does not make for the best introduction to a minister. For me the packet has evolved by trial and error, the photo essays and presentation have been modified over the years to reflect different ministries.
Web sites can supplement, but do not supplant the traditional printed media packet. The old advice to stay away from audio and video material no longer applies, with computer software we can edit a audio file or a video file, so it doesn't sound or look as bad as what home movie cameras were producing fifteen years ago. I used VCR effectively twelve years ago, with a Digital camera and iMovie and DVD duplication the packets will be different in the future, but the written word will continue to be to be the medium of first impressions.
Some sermons work better in a packet than others. It might take a candidate two years to preach sermons that tell a search committee about you, rather than just your opinion about a topic. So preach some sermons with yourself as the text.
Write your biography again and again and again. Telling your story in a packet comes through practice, the search committee is trying to get to know you. The packet is medium that helps them accomplish that task.
Well we are moving to San Diego. Target time, late July.
I am still in the search process for an interim position for next year. Decision time is approaching. All the positions are hundreds of miles from San Diego, so I will commute when I have my time off.
Things to do.
Hunt for an apartment, or rental house in San Diego. We plan to get to know the city before we buy. The prices are high right now, and leveling off, most folks doubt whether they will keep going up at the rates they have in the last decade.
Pack my residence in Indiantown and our place in Wesley Chapel, Florida.
Put it on a truck. Drive across the country. Unpack and then go to whereever the interim takes me.
From a "Bike Week" poster from Santa Cruz, California
From the First Unitarian Universalist Church in San Diego podcast site: "After a week of meetings and discussing our dreams, Rev. Bowens-Wheatley will share her thoughts on how our Congregation can strengthen our caring, deepen our justice making, and build community. After this service, Rev. Bowens-Wheatley was called by democratic vote as our future Associate Minister beginning September 1."
DRUUM is approaching its tenth year of existence as a Unitarian Universalist gathering. It was founded by a meeting of the African American Unitarian Universalist Ministers and the Latino/Latino Unitarian Universalist Network who agreed that a common organization of racially and culturally oppressed peoples was necessary. DRUUM stands for Diverse Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Ministries (see link on side bar.)
Over the years I have been to many DRUUM meetings. Marjorie and I hosted DRUUM families in Massachusetts when we were there. I have been to a few meetings at GA, especially before I was on the UUMA exec and became super busy. Saturday, there was a breakfast meeting of the San Diego DRUUM at the First UU Church.
It was a good meeting, I think this chapter has much potential. Many DRUUM members came latter in the day or on Sunday. Saturday morning is not the best time to meet.
