Board of Trustees Responds to Rev. Mary's Announcement

After your trustees learned at the March Board meeting of Rev. Mary’s candidacy to be called to First Parish Brewster – and picked ourselves up and dusted off our lapels – we turned to the question: What comes next?

UUCA is about to enter a period of self-examination and redefinition that will evolve over several years. I am excited about it, even as I feel the loss of a minister in whom I have personally invested much over four years. Let me explain.

I was a member of the ministerial search that brought Mary McKinnon Ganz from Oakland upon her graduation from seminary. When she came to interview, she and I spoke easily and intimately of some of the tribulations we had experienced. Of the challenges I was then facing, including heartbreaking estrangement from my children and the death of my mother seven weeks earlier, Mary nodded and said quietly, “Afgo.” Afgo? “Another [freaking] growth opportunity.”

I wanted this direct and compassionate person in my life.

In Rev. Mary’s first year with us, I chaired her ministry advisory committee, which essentially was a covenant group supporting her exploration of a sometimes overwhelming new land. I left the committee to join the Board and began growing with her in another capacity.

Assuming First Parish affirms its search committee’s wisdom, our Rev. Mary will move on to bigger challenges. I am proud of our congregation’s role in preparing her for them.

Back to our congregation.

The Board will soon appoint a three-member search committee to work with Rev. Michael to find an interim minister to serve us for one year, possibly two.

Because Rev. Michael, by his own words, is approaching the end of his ministry, the Board anticipates that the congregation will turn to the work of finding his successor before it fills Rev. Mary’s place with a called minister.

That means we will have a long period of transition. Perhaps upheaval. Definitely change.

Last summer, the Board appointed a task force to study our ministerial structure and look ahead to what comes after Rev. Michael’s retirement. In March, the task force held a very constructive meeting with all the ministers to discuss its recommendations – just as Rev. Mary was getting a congratulatory call from Brewster. Meetings among the Board, the task force, and the ministers will continue, as the called and lay leadership consider what’s to come.

The keys to this period will be flexibility and communication. We face uncertainties: the coming vote at Brewster, the hiring of our potential interim, Rev. Michael’s retirement intentions, the process in which we will bring in a senior interim to help the congregation explore what we would like in our next ministry team. The Board will stay in conversation with you.

Let a new chapter begin.