UUA Transitions Team
Newsletter
Serving Congregations & Ministers
February 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...
- Dear Search Team
- Settled Search Teams and Pre-Candidates
- Settled Search Teams
- Potential Applicant Ministers
- All Search Teams & Application or Pre-Candidate Ministers
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Dear Search Team,
I know you have held the teaching of B4 close to your process, and in doing so have remained conscious of (and tried to resist!) the biases with which we all wrestle.
As you begin to engage more fully with your pre-candidates, I invite you to continue holding that awareness. Remember to ask yourselves questions such as:
- Am I welcoming and genuinely excited to learn the stories that make up this candidate’s life? Am I trying to fit them into a single narrative? (And would I want that for myself?)
- Are we comparing candidates to one another, rather than keeping in front of us the gifts, skills, and passions we hope to find in our next minister?
- Am I giving equal weight to what I am learning that challenges my assumptions about how a minister sounds like, looks like, or moves.
Consider these questions with care. Give yourselves time to listen within your own hearts before speaking together as a group. Even 30 seconds of attentive, shared breathing can have a remarkably positive effect on our systems. Intentional breathing is a gift we always carry with us.
You have come this far—continue to make space for care and consideration to bloom.
We continue to send you good wishes and joy on your journey!
For Pre-Candidates
Bring your best. Your ministries are needed in this moment. The match between a minister and a congregation is a lush combination of the skillful, the magical, the personal, and the sharing and opening of hearts.
Possible futures begin now.
We wish you great good luck!
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Settled Search Teams & Pre-Candidates
What is a vespers service? A number of search team members (and a few ministers) have reached out to the UUA Transitions Team to ask what a vespers service is. The vespers services offered by pre-candidates to search teams will be short, heart-centered, intimate services. They may include a reading, music, a ritual, a short homily or story, or other elements that the minister wants to share. They may be offered at the end of a day or at the end of your time together to mark the time you have spent getting to know each other with gratitude and care.
The goal of the UUA in replacing neutral pulpits with vespers services, beyond protecting confidentiality in the age of streaming Sunday services, was to create an opportunity for ministers to share a side of themselves which a search team could not already know from watching sermon videos. We hope pre-candidate ministers and settled search teams will have a great experience creating meaning together!
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Please dismiss any applicants you still have in the system now that you all have your final lists of pre-candidates. The search system contains an option to customize the message that will go to any applicants minister with whom you will not move forward. |
Potential Applicant Ministers
The following contract ministry searches have been published since the last newsletter:
- Cincinnati (St. John’s), OH (developmental ministry, full-time, for experienced ministers)
- Racine, WI (developmental ministry, full-time, for experienced ministers)
- Galloway, NJ: ¾ time
- Flint, MI: full-time
- Manassas, VA, ½ time
- Tampa, FL, ½ time
- Plymouth, MA, full-time
- Newark, DE, ½ time
- Lynchburg, VA, ⅝ time
- Waltham, MA (both short-term until summer 2026 and longer-term starting August 2026, full-time)
The developmental ministry search profile for our Macon, GA congregation will be published very soon. Experienced ministers, please check it out!
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.All Search Teams & Application or Pre-Candidate Ministers
Please remember that you will send your rankings to the UUA on or by 23 March. Search teams should not make or hint at offers before ranking and matching, and ministers should not request or expect offers.
While offers must wait until 26 March, it is important for search teams and top applicants to discuss whether the compensation and benefits offered by the congregation would meet ministers’ needs if a match aligns. If a minister would need a benefit not mentioned in the draft compensation package or a salary above the minimum identified by the congregation, it is fine for them to identify their needs and for a search team to confirm what is possible if that minister becomes the candidate for settled ministry or the minister hired by the congregation. Make sure you know what you need to know before ranking.
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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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