This post was prepared to be released on the beginning of Minister's Days, the annual in gathering of Unitarian Universalist ministers. What could be more appropriate than to republish Jack Mendelsohn's, "Who Is A Unitarian Universalist Minster." This piece is has been repeatedly quoted, and misquoted for more than a generation, which I think is the mark of classic.
A Unitarian Universalist minister is a person never completely satisfied or satisfiable, never completely adjusted or adjustable - a person who walks in tow worlds: one of things as they are, the other of things as they ought to be-and loves them both.
Ministers are persons with pincushion souls and elastic hearts, who sit with happy and the sad in a chaotic pattern of laugh, cry, laugh, cry - and know deep down that the first time their laughter is false or their tears are make-believe, their days as real ministers are over.
Ministers are people with dreams they can never fully share, partly because they have some doubts about them, and partly because they are unable to explain adequately what it is they they think they see and understand.
A minister is a person who continually runs out of time, out of wisdom, out of courage, and out of money; a person whose tasks involve great responsibility and little power, who must learn to accept people where hey are are and go from there; a person who must never try to exercise influence that has not been earned.
The minister who is worthy knows all this and is still thankful every day of life for the privilege of being-a minister.
The future of the liberal church is almost totally dependent of two factors: great congregations (whether large or small) and effective, dedicated ministers. The strangest feature of their relationship is that they create one another.
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