Minister's Musing

Rev. Mark Ward
Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville

October 2008

I’m writing my column this month from a conference center outside Chicago while attending a class given by the Alban Institute on the subject of “Advanced Supervision: Coordinating the Visions of Multiple Staff.” We have been talking at UUCA in the last couple of years about some of the consequences of becoming a large church, and one of the more important ones is the growth of our staff and the role they play at church.

There are now 13 people who serve on our staff, including four who are full time. They serve in areas ranging from our administrative office to our Religious Education Department, to pastoral care, membership and Sunday worship. As minister I’m designated chief of staff, and one of my goals recently has been to find ways for us to work as a team. We meet together monthly and hold retreats periodically to share information and find ways to work together better.

Board President Mary Alm has told you a little about the work that church leadership is doing to shift the way our church is governed to better fit our size. Among other things this means the board is looking to spend less of its energy on day-to-day management concerns and more on larger policy issues. This change necessarily shifts more responsibility for management to the staff, which actually is good for everyone. As the church gets busier, staff are better positioned to deal with immediate concerns and to work with lay leaders to organize programs for our members.Overall church life, though, is still guided by the goals that the board sets each year to help our congregation achieve the mission it has set for itself. And under the model we are moving to the staff’s work will respond to those goals.

I hope to use my learning from this conference to help us as a staff shape our work so that we may better focus our energy on what will advance the vision proposed by our board of a church serving our individual search for meaning while making the world a freer, more just, more loving place.

P.S. Last year you may remember that I gave a series of sermons on our seven Unitarian Universalist principles while the UU Commission on Appraisal was considering ways that the principles might be changed. Well, the COA has offered a draft of the changes it proposes. The draft would not change the language of the principles themselves very much, but would alter the context in which they are framed. If you would like to know more, look on the Web at www25.uua.org/coa/. The COA is requesting comment, so please consider reading the draft and sending your comments, but do take note that the comment period ends on October 16. Happy reading!