Ministerial Search Committee Information
The Board of Trustees will begin the ministerial search process on Sunday afternoon, March 10. We will start with phone calls to all member households on 3/10 and continue over the next few weeks until we’ve contacted everyone. One purpose of these calls is to surface names for our Search Committee. After we have finished our phone calls with each of you, we will work with our Nominations Committee to produce a slate of 7 candidates for the Search Committee. This slate will be voted upon by the congregation at the June annual meeting. Once selected by the congregation, the Search Committee begins their work. They will spend the next church year (2024-25):
- Surveying and having lots of discussion with congregants
- Preparing a congregational record
- Interviewing prospective ministers
- Narrowing to a list of three pre-candidates
- Conducting three in-depth interviews with observation in a neutral pulpit
- Nominating a candidate for the settled Senior Minister
After we spend a week in meetings with the candidate in April 2025 (with two opportunities to hear them preach), we will vote to “call” this new settled Senior Minister at a special meeting.
Do you know of someone (including yourself) who would make a good candidate for the Search Committee? We are looking for those who are willing to spend the 2024-25 year with this as their only church assignment. The Search Committee will have a diverse set of skills and members will have: Demonstrated capacity to work well within the committee and with the broader congregation, a record of responsible participation and leadership in the congregation, a willingness to learn our history and accurately portray it, and a commitment to serve the entire congregation. Click below for more information.
June 14, 2023
May 16, 2023
A Letter from Rev. Victoria
Dear Friends,
My ministry at First Unitarian Church of Des Moines is drawing to a close, and I am writing with sadness and confident hope as you carry forward the beautiful work of this congregation: to grow your souls in community and serve the world in love.
I am grateful for the graceful luck that brought us together this year, and grateful for your forbearance with this ministry that was in so many ways far from ideal. Your congregation needs and deserves a minister who is in residence full-time, not commuting, not preaching on a screen remotely. Thank you for your patience with all this, and for welcoming me into your community.
I’ll be present with you on Sunday, June 4, when my sermon will be an “annual report” of sorts, sharing reflections on this year we’ve shared. My final Sunday service with you will be on June 11. My work here ends on June 15; please do reach out if you would like to meet on Zoom or in person, or to speak by phone, before then.
As you know, I’m sure, from past ministry transitions, the UUA and UU Ministers Association offer clear guidelines about leaving. I know that I will continue to serve you best, going forward, by stepping back entirely from contact with members and friends of the congregation. When your new Interim Minister arrives, and later, when a settled minister is called, I will be honored to sign a written covenant with each of them, assuring them my care for you is deep enough that I will respect this collegial and professional boundary. I’m sure similar covenants have been and will be in place with my beloved colleagues who have served you in the past, both as interim and settled ministers, whether in the lead role or as associates. Please know: for me, there is real grief in this, but there is also gratitude and joy, as I think of the life of your church flowing like a mighty river, from its powerful sources in 1877 through years and years to come. I will carry you in my heart, with love.
Together with the Board of Trustees and Interim Search Committee, I’m excited about the Interim Minister you’ll soon meet to companion you through the next two years. I’m working now with your staff team, lay leaders and the Board to ensure that Sunday services, pastoral care, rites of passage, and staff supervision will continue smoothly in the weeks between the end of my ministry on June 15, and the start of theirs on August 1. All will be well.
May compassion, trust and courage sojourn with us as we part. My prayer for you is one you know by heart, as I do, now, as well: Hallowed be each coming morning; calm and peaceful be each night.
With respect and gratitude, Victoria