UUA Transitions Team
Newsletter
Serving Congregations & Ministers
January 2026 |
The UUA Transitions Team is a partnership between Ministries & Faith Development and Congregational Life staff, supporting good matches between congregations and ministers. |
In this issue we have news for...
- Those in the Settled Ministry Search
- Contract Ministry Search Teams and Applicants
- Applicants and Potential Applicant Ministers
- Everyone!
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Settled Ministry Search
Today is the day! Search Teams, please email the ministers you want to invite to be a pre-candidate. If you don’t have all of your pre-candidates identified, extend the invitations you are ready to make. There are always a few invitations made after the 23rd, either because a search team hadn’t quite decided between two top applicants or because one of their invitees declined. Ministers will not be likely to reserve one of their three possible pre-candidating opportunities for a search team which may or may not invite them after the 23rd, but if they have a free pre-candidating slot, they may accept a later invitation.
- Some ministers are showing up for public witness in Minneapolis right now, and many will be at the UU Ministers Association Institute next week. Please be patient as you await responses on and after the 24th.
- Once a minister accepts (tomorrow or within a couple of days), send them the dates you chose for pre-candidating visits and ask which ones could work for them.
- When you have availability for everyone, schedule the visits.
- Once the visits are scheduled, notify the UUA Transitions Team who is visiting you and when: transitions@uua.org. This notification serves as your request for an interpretive file summary. Your team will receive each file summary during the week before your visit.
If you have fewer accepted invitations than you expected and would like to discuss this, please set up an appointment with Christine Purcell for comfort, context, and strategy.
Ministers, if you have been selected as a finalist by a search team, you will begin receiving invitations today! If you know you will decline an invitation, you may respond immediately. If you will accept an invitation, wait until the 24th or later to do so, it’s fine to take a couple of days to think, if you need to do so. If you find yourself with no pre-candidate invitations or fewer than you would have liked, the UUA Transitions Team is here to support you. Don’t hesitate to reach out.
All, congratulations on moving through the flurry of activity which is the applicant phase of the settled search! The UUA Transitions Team hopes for ease and spaciousness in the pre-candidate phase and good matches for all. |
Contract Ministry Search Teams and Applicants
In-person visits with applicants are not baked into the contract search process, though they are permissible.
If a contract search team invites top applicants to visit, they should cover the ministers’ travel and hospitality expenses up front or by prompt reimbursement, being careful to keep applicants’ names out of search team financial records which will be submitted to finance or administrative volunteers. The search team should always keep confidentiality in mind during visits so that the congregation’s staff, volunteers, and members will not learn the identities of ministers whom the congregation has not hired. If the board requires final approval of top applicants selected by the search team before rankings are due on 23 March and you bring in top applicants for visits, you may introduce the applicants to the board with the applicants’ consent as long as the board maintains confidentiality about their identities until after rankings, matching, offer day, and negotiations.
Hires without visits have worked well over the years in interim, developmental, and contract searches, so ministers should do their best to evaluate each congregation to which they have applied as fully and fairly as possible, whether a search team offers an in-person visit or not. Some search teams have the funds for visits and others do not. Try not to make assumptions about the likelihood of a match based on whether a contract search team offers you a visit or not. Christine Purcell, our Congregational Transitions Director, is hearing that contract search teams plan for between 0 and 3 visits, with more than half not planning to offer visits unless someone is quite close by.
Applicants can accept up to three pre-candidating visits in the settled search process. There is no limit on visits in the contract search process. |
Applicants and Potential Applicant Ministers |
Here are some new searches and new information about existing searches:
- The UU Congregation in Saratoga Springs, NY has listed a full-time contract ministry position
- First Church of Houston, TX has listed a full-time, multi-year assistant ministry position
- UU Church at Washington Crossing (Titusville, NJ) has listed a half-time assistant ministry position
- The UU Congregation of Erie, PA has moved to the 2026 Primetime search
- The UU Society of Rockport, MA has extended their contract term (2 years, renewable for a third year, open to contract-to-call).
Experienced ministers, please consider developmental ministry opportunities! We will publish developmental ministry profiles on January 31st for Cincinnati OH, Racine WI, and Macon GA. The timeline and process for the developmental ministry search is on page 28 of the Ministry Search Handbook. |
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Everyone - Dream Bigger
In this moment, all of us are needed to bring Unitarian Universalism to life. Be brave. What you are taking on makes a difference, each and every day. |
With you all the way,
Interim Settled Ministry Director
Congregational Transitions Director
Transformational Interim Ministries Director
Transitions Administrator |
Transitions Office
24 Farnsworth St, Boston, MA, 02210 |
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