The Ministerial Transition Team (MTT) has been reviewing and guiding the updates to the Ministerial Teams Terms of Reference (TOR). The TORs for some teams have been completed and approved by the Minister, while other teams are in the process of completing their updates. Eventually, all the Team TORs will be available for congregants to review and learn about the work of the various Teams.
One of the books the MTT recommends for learning about an Interim Ministry – its purpose, tasks undertaken, and goals – is ‘In the Interim: Strategies for Interim Ministers and Congregations’ edited by Barbara Child and Keith Kron. We thought it a timely book to recommend as we have one more year of Interim with Rev. Lara.
This book might inspire you to be more engaged in this process, which will help us work with the eventual settled minister as well!
There are copies of the book in the UCV Office that can be loaned out.
Submitted by Cynthia Lam & Elizabeth Dunn
Below is a review of some of the highlights of ‘In the Interim’ by MTT member Leslie Hill:
“The four essays I thought were most succinct and helpful for UCV are:
- A Different Country by Judith Walker-Riggs
- Mining, Minding and Making Stories by Pam Blevins Hinkle
- Coming to Terms with History by David Keyes
- The Interim Minister as Systems Analyst by Richard A. Nugent
A Different Country
“A peaceful, quiet interim period is one in which interim tasks are not completed, and needful changes do not happen.
Leadership and membership must come to understand the differences between called ministry and interim ministry. One way to increase this understanding is for the interim, the Transition Team, and the Board to talk about the differences explicitly and publicly.”
Mining, Minding, and Making Stories
“Telling our stories is not an end in itself, but an attempt to release ourselves from them, to evolve and grow beyond them. We tell our stories to transform ourselves; to learn about our history and tell our experiences to transcend them; to use our stories to make a difference in our world; to broaden our perspective to see further than normal; to act beyond a story that may have imprisoned or enslaved us; to live more of our spiritual and earthly potential.” Huffington Post.
Coming to Terms with History
“Every congregation lives in dialogue with its past. Every congregation is strengthened immeasurably by its history, but every congregation has also been deeply wounded by its past. It is both the heir and the victim of its story. Affection transition ministry begins with a long look in the rearview mirror, where we must read the admonition: ‘Objects may be closer than they appear.’”
The Interim Minister as Systems Analyst
“Interim ministry is about inviting the present congregation to envision the congregation of tomorrow. It is about looking at the health of the congregation as a whole as well as each of its component parts. It is about coming to understand the emotions (grief, sadness, anger, disappointment, among others) associated with the end of the previous ministry and navigating the anxiety of looking ahead to the future ministry.”