In The Interim
Rev. Roberta Finkelstein
Sunday September 18, 2005

One year. That’s all we have together. I arrived here 6 weeks ago to act as your Interim Minister for one year. The interim period is two years, and you will have another Interim Minister next year. The reason is that the more different styles of ministry you experience, the more likely it is that you will be able to identify your own style. Your call to a settled minister will most likely be successful if you are able to be clear about who you are as a congregation. Let me be clear, not matter how well this interim year goes, I can not stay. The board hired me for one year; it is written into my letter of agreement that I will not be a candidate for the settled minister position.

So what, you may be asking, have we gotten ourselves into for this one year? A lot! The art of Interim Ministry as been carefully developed in the last couple of decades, as people who take congregational life seriously have applied the concepts of systems theory and organizational dynamics to the life of communities of faith. In synagogues and churches of various denominations, a consensus has developed as to what needs to happen when a church is ‘between ministers’. What needs to happen, that is, if the next settled ministry it to thrive.

Five basic tasks have been identified. And again, these are actually specified in my letter of agreement as the work that I will do with you this year. The first is claiming and honoring the past and healing your griefs and conflicts. Or, in terser language, coming to terms with history. This work has already begun. I have been talking to many of you about where the areas of tension have been in the past. Soon we will be forming an Interim Transition Team. One of their first actions will be work with me to set up a series of Congregational Conversations. These small groups, carefully facilitated, will be a safe place for venting anger, expressing sorrow, and acknowledging regret for things said or done. As we do this work, it will be important for you to remember that in most congregations, at least 10% of the membership is new each year. So as you complete this task, do so with some sensitivity that for a significant percentage of your fellow UUCFers, the content your old griefs and conflicts is unknown and probably irrelevant. But the work needs doing to insure your long term success.

This is hard work; but I promise you that if you are willing to work with me, we can come to terms with your history in a careful and respectful way, and then be done with it. The philosopher Santayana said it best years ago. “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Your first task is to agree, at least in principle, that you really don’t want to spend your time and energy repeating history.

The second task is illuminating your unique identity, strengths, needs, and challenges. This is what we might think of as the ‘looking in the mirror and seeing clearly’ task. What is your mission, really? Not the words on the paper you call your mission statement, but your real understanding of the reason this church exists. Is this sanctuary an oasis? Are there needs out there – in that big, wide world – that you see yourselves as uniquely positioned to meet? This is a process of discovery of a new identity for this congregation. You may find that you need to remind yourselves, more than once, that this is primarily a RELIGIOUS community. Not social, not intellectual, not organizational. The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick is primarily a religious community. If you keep that truth in front of you, in metaphorical neon lights, it can become the lens of discernment for your decision making. Does this idea or that directions further our life together as a religious community?

The third task is clarifying the multiple dimensions of leadership, both ordained and lay, and navigating the shifts in leadership that accompany times of transition. This task has two main parts to it. One is very tangible - it is an evaluation and renewal of the infrastructure of the congregation. It will mean looking at the by-laws, the policies and procedures, and the overall organizational structure. Do these documents, these structures, serve the volunteers and staff well? Do they make it easy for all of us to do our jobs, to communicate clearly with each other, to accomplish our goals?

In upcoming months you will see some of the earliest fruits of this work in the form of a newly streamlined Programs Council. A subset of board members and leaders are educating themselves about governance matters. New programs that are responsive to the expressed needs and desires of the membership are already underway. The Welcoming Congregation Task Force has begun its work to bring institutional sensitivity and awareness to our ministry to gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenered persons. Next Sunday we will have what we hope becomes a monthly event – an American Sign Language interpreter at the 11 am service.

There is a second, less tangible aspect of this developmental task that is absolutely essential to allowing new forms of leadership to emerge. That is to bring transparency, trust, and mutual empowerment to all levels of leadership. When you choose leaders, whether by election or assignment, do you then allow them to do their best work? Our nation has been crippled by a dysfunctional understanding of leadership relationships. We elect people, then wait gleefully for them to fail. That toxic attitude has filtered down into other institutions in our democracy, poisoning traditional town meetings and hobbling voluntary associations at all levels. What I hope for here is a rebirth of trust. I promise you that I will act, to the best of my ability, in trustworthy ways. Will you give me the benefit of the doubt? Will you let me know when I have let you down? Will you talk to me and not about me? To trust is to communicate directly, and honestly, and respectfully. Even when you are disappointed. Even when you are angry. Even when you are afraid.

If we can relearn the art of trust, all of us, minister, staff, board, officers, committee chairs, Tidy Troupers, you name it – all of us will then feel empowered to do our best for this congregation. We won’t worry about making mistakes, we won’t worry about being criticized behind our backs, we won’t worry about nasty rumors or ugly emails. We can, in other words, all get back to work on the work of the church.

The fourth task is renewing connections with available resources within and beyond the Unitarian Universalist Association. To renew your relationship with the denomination, in spite of past disappointments, would be to make your life easier in many ways. It will be to consult with the District Settlement Representative – a one-person treasure trove of information about how to conduct a successful search for a settled minister. It will be to send delegates to the District meeting and to General Assembly; delegates who will discover the great pleasure of networking, socializing, singing, playing and conversing with hundreds and thousands of Unitarian Universalists from all over the country.

It is also to learn more about our shared history, to experience the full spectrum of theological and spiritual expressions of Unitarian Universalism – from religious humanism to liberal Christianity. Every fourth Sunday, in conjunction with our New Member Recognition Ceremony, I will be offering a sermon on some aspect of basic Unitarian Universalist identity. Just by coming to church on those Sundays you will be doing the work of the 4th developmental task of the interim year. And if you want extra credit, bring a friend on those Sundays. They are designed to be seeker-friendly. The single most effective way to grow a church is by word of mouth. Here’s a way for you to bring the neighbor, co-worker, or friend that you just know would love to be here, if only somebody would nudge them in the door.

And finally, way down the road, probably mostly in the second year of the interim, is the fifth task. Enabling the congregation to renew its vision, strengthen its stewardship, prepare for new professional leadership, and engage its future with anticipation and zest. In other words, get everything all spiffed up before the new minister arrives. Although this task will mostly come to fruition in the second year, the work has already begun, particularly on the aspect of strengthening stewardship. You will hear more about this later this fall.

What will this congregation look like and sound like and feel like when, at the end of two years, these developmental goals have been accomplished? I have no idea. I have absolutely no investment in the shape of the outcome. That is up to you to decide, because it is your church. At the end of this year, I will be handing back to you whatever power and trust you have given to me, to pass on to the next minister. The outcome is entirely up to you.

How will we do all this work? I have no idea. Well, maybe I have some ideas. But much of the strategy will be worked out in consultation with the Interim Transition Team, the board, the staff, and all of you.

I can tell you what I bring to the work. I bring a lifetime of experience as a Unitarian Universalist, a good seminary education enhanced by a very intentional program of ongoing continuing education, and 15 years of experience in parish ministry. I bring a commitment to ministry that is as deep and heartfelt today as it was on the day I was ordained. I promise you that I will be trustworthy. I will be as transparent as I can be, and will communicate as clearly as I can. I will be professional and ethical in all my relationships with you and in all my transactions with your congregation. I will be responsive to you. I will be responsive to individuals with pastoral needs, and to groups with ideas. I will work with the board and staff and committees as a coach, a resource person, and a pastor. I will tell you when I think you are on the wrong track, but I won’t take it personally if you decide to keep going on. After all, in a year I will be gone. It is your church and your track.

And finally, I will be real. As I wrote those words I remembered something that I had long forgotten. In my first year in seminary, I came to Frederick to conduct your Easter service as a guest minister. Some of you remember this; you were meeting at the YMCA and we were locked out of the building. We had church on the sidewalk. I don’t remember anything about the sermon, but as I was preparing this sermon, I remembered very clearly what the children’s story was about. It was based on a few lines of text from The Velveteen Rabbit. “What is real?” the rabbit asked the Skin Horse? "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Well, here we are again, all these years later. Back then, my message was for the children. Now it is for you. Let us begin, together, to become real.