RevCyn

I began this blog article in late November, and worked it through several drafts and researched it as thoroughly as I was able, and then had it reviewed by several trusted people, and then, after all that, decided not to publish it.  Instead, I wanted to reach out first directly to the Starr King Board, and so on December 15th, 2014, I sent a letter to the Starr King Board and SKSM President Rosemary Bray McNatt.  Since my December drafts, however, a lot has happened.  Two more faculty have resigned from Starr King.  Rev. Kurt Kuhwald's resignation letter and other documents can be read on Dan Harper's blog.  It's also worth noting that Rev. Kurt Kuhwald also asks the UUA Board to conduct an inquiry -- something I don't address in my statement, but worth considering further.  The UU Society for Community Ministries has put out a Statement of Concern , calling on Starr King to reverse the refusal of diplomas and to focus energy on restoring trust.  And...

In the last week or two, I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bivocational ministry" as the potential saving model for sustainability in our movement.  The subject has come up in a number of collegial conversations, and Scott Wells introduces the subject in a recent post .  First of all, as far as I can see "bivocational ministry" is just a fancy term for "part-time ministry" that makes it sound like something the minister wants because they have some other wonderful job they don't want to give up. What are the problems with bivocational ministry?  It can be a great choice if: You're independently wealthy You're a second-career minister with a lucrative first profession You have a spouse with a good income On the other hand, it's not so great if:  You're a first-career minister You're not independently wealthy You don't have a spouse with a good income I was a part-time minister for a couple of years.  You ...

I've been using my tablet (a Nexus 7 Android tablet, and before that my Kindle) to preach from rather than paper-printed text as of late, something that I know some of my colleagues are doing but some are hesitant about.  There are some good reasons for doing so: 1.  It saves paper. That would be enough, but here are some more: 2.  I can move around with it and am not tied to the pulpit, even if I want to preach from a manuscript. 3.  It cuts down on clutter and filing.  4.  No shuffling or sliding or flipping paper noises. 5.  Nobody accidentally walks away with part of my manuscript. 6.  I never lose a page. 7.  I never get to the middle and find out that the ink ran out midway through printing. 8.  I never leave a page on my printer. 9.  I never grab the wrong folder. 10.  For Christmas Eve and other dimly lit services, it's back-lit. 11.  Color doesn't cost more!   For people worrying about t...

It seems I still have more to say on this issue, so those who are tired of it already may want to just close this post now and avoid the next few.  I promise to move on to another subject soon, but having NOT written about this for ten years of ministry, I've built up a list of things to say.  And it seems that there is a segment of people who have been yearning for someone to write about this.  So what was the straw, the final thing that made me break my silence?  I think it was the " fat-shaming professor ," Geoffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico, who tweeted, "Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn't have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth." For the record, having written an M.A. thesis, a D.Min. thesis, and something over 300 sermons, I'm pretty sure that's not the #truth.  But I was raised by a fat man with a Ed.D.  He always told me what the hardest thing about finishin...

"What do you do the rest of the week?" I was recently asked.  I don't mind the question.  Indeed, I welcome it.  It's a frequent frustration among ministers that, regardless of how hard we work, the perception exists that we really only work on Sunday morning.  I've heard this perception myself from members, visitors, and even staff during my years of ministry.  This perception can exist when we've really had an easy time of it, or on the week when we spent all of Friday and Saturday by a bedside and then got up to give the sermon on Sunday morning.  In fact, often the weeks people think are the hardest for me are actually the easiest, and vice-versa.  For example, I find as it approaches Christmas, my job gets easier.  Nobody wants to schedule extra meetings during this time, and some meetings get cancelled.  While Christmas programs are big productions, a lot of it can be the same from year to year, which requires less research and creativi...

One of the biggest questions ministers have about Facebook is "should I friend my congregants"?  Both a "yes" and a "no" answer are reasonable answers.  I do friend congregants, although not minors in my congregation, and here are some tips to keep in mind if you do: Create friend groups.  This can be done by clicking on "Friends" in the left hand column from your Home page, and then clicking "Create List" at the top of the page.  Create a group called something like "Church" or "Congregants" and then put all your congregants in it.  Nobody knows what groups you have but you.  Unless you post it on your blog like this!  Remember that each new friend will have to be immediately put into the groups, and this can be done when you're friending them directly.  Now that you have a group, you can do some important things with it.  First, you can click on this group (again in the left hand column, under friends--click ...

In Part One , I left off here: I think the only options that are really viable and just are to either fund our seminarians or ministers better or to decrease our expectations about the seminary process. Decrease Expectations ? Some people have proposed interesting models of becoming a minister that are not seminary-focused. These are certainly intriguing. As a seminary-trained minister, I see the value in seminary and I am perhaps too invested in this system to step outside of this box adequately. I see our "learned ministry" as an important and defining tradition that is part of our make-up as Unitarian Universalism. It is also in keeping with the denominations that we are closest to. I'm not quite willing to drop seminary altogether. However, there are some interesting proposals about modifying the process. Here's mine. Shortening seminary is entirely doable. A four-year process to become a minister does seem a bit outrageous. What about a one-year process ...

A number of UU bloggers have been taking on the issue of the cost of becoming a UU minister. To see some of that discussion, check out PolityWonk , Elizabeth's Little Blog , iMinister , the Interdependent Web , Planting God Communities , Rev. Scott Wells ... iMinister, in particular, has been doing a number of blog posts looking at every angle. In a previous post I outlined the process for becoming a UU minister. The issue is that this standard process is too expensive, given the wages that many UU ministers will make, particularly in smaller churches, which we have a lot of in the UUA. (For full-time ministers, which right there is an assumption, the range starts at 37,600.) The cost of seminary is around $15,000 per year for tuition alone, and then books and whatnot, until you're looking at a cost of around $35,000 for the year. Remember that four main choices for seminary for UUs are Andover Newton, Harvard, Meadville Lombard, and Starr King. They are in the Boston ...

There's a discussion going on in the blogosphere about the costs of ministerial formation, and I was going to jump right in, but realized it's hard to do so without first describing what goes into becoming a minister in our denomination. So this is a description of that process. The UUA describes the process here . I'll go into some detail in a way that will hopefully be shorter and easier to follow. I may mix things up a bit, because the process has substantially changed since I went through it. You go through three stages with the UUA in becoming a UU minister: Applicant, Aspirant, and Candidate. As an applicant, one applies to the UUA to be in the process of becoming a minister, and starts theological school. UU ministers may attend any accredited theological school. I went to one of the two UU schools: Meadville Lombard Theological School. The standard path to becoming a UU minister right now is a four-year process, although some manage to do it faster and some ...

For years, I have been carrying bottled water into the pulpit. I drink and like tap water at home, but I don't like the taste of the church's well water, so I've been porting my own water in, yes, those horrible plastic bottles that fill up our landfills. Now seems like the time to stop. So this summer I've been in search of the perfect bottle to take to church every week (and every other day I'm there, as well). I started by mentioning this to my husband. He had previously purchased some Rubbermaid ones we've been using at home: These won't work for toting water to church, because (as, yes, I have found) the cap isn't very secure and will leak water all over your bag and onto your sermon. So when I mentioned to my husband that I was looking for one that would work for taking to church, unbeknownst to me, he went and purchased a bottle from "ecousable." This has the advantage of having the round top where I could clip it to the outside of my ba...

Michigan is having a hard time right now. No news there. My city, Jackson, Michigan, topped Forbes' list of the 10 Worst Small Cities for Jobs . Five other small Michigan cities made that top ten list as well. And of course we're well represented on the mid-sized and large-sized cities lists, as well, with Detroit coming in number one on the latter. Find any other gloomy list of worst places to be in this economy, Michigan cities are sure to be on it. Michigan churches are having a hard time, too, of course. When times get hard, discretionary income goes down. And churches are, well, discretionary, particularly in the guilt-free UU version where tithing isn't a religious obligation in the same way that it is in some other faiths. One measure of rough things are in Michigan might be to look at the level of ministerial transition. Sometimes these transitions are a result of ministerial tenures happening naturally, but sometimes they're because of a need to decrease the ...