Our Feelings on Supporting Ministries

Over the past few months, I’ve been surprised by some of the reactions from colleagues and former colleagues about my decision to accept an Assistant Minister position.  Those reactions have covered a broad range of concern and emotion… all of which was heartfelt.  I do not want this article to be taken as criticism of anyone who expressed their concerns and feelings to me… far from it.  I cherish those who expressed concern for me.   I instead want to look at some of the assumptions in our denomination (indeed in many denominations) about supporting ministries.

Let me say a few things upfront about my decision to become the Assistant Minister of the UU Church of Ventura, California.  I went into search looking for an Associate or Assistant Minister position, or for a sole minister position in a smaller congregation.  Why? Because I am seeking to find a better balance between full-time congregational ministry and reserve military chaplaincy than I was able to find in my last congregation, or would be able to find in full-time hospital or hospice chaplaincy.  When my wife pointed out to me that I took exactly 1 day of vacation last year (and that only because I skipped UUMA Professional Days and went to a waterpark instead), it highlighted a problem I was already feeling… that my military duty takes up much of my time away from the congregation.

I chose to come to Ventura because I sensed that Rev. Jan Christian and I have compatible personalities, perhaps too compatible in that it might be better if we didn’t agree with each other in certain areas…  Our senses of humor “work” with one another, and our congregational styles are close enough to work together, and different enough to keep it interesting.   One colleague who knows both of us described it as Jan being the chocolate, and my being the peanut butter…

I chose to come to Ventura because I saw in the congregation a willingness to move on faith… to move into a new building, to move to year round stewardship, to move to theme based ministry, to move the community on homelessness, to move on bringing in a new Assistant Minister when other congregations are struggling with how to keep the ministries they have.  Now we are moving in new directions in Religious Education, in our Great Expectations Covenant, and in health ministry…

I did not choose Assistant Ministry because “things went badly” in my last congregation, and now I need to make up for it by being an Assistant Minister.  Things went rather well in Midland Michigan, and I am honored to have been their Interim Minister, and that they called my dear friend Jeff Liebmann to be their new minister.  I achieved every goal we set for my time there, and a few we didn’t plan on.

I did not choose Assistant Ministry because I am having a crisis of confidence as to whether or not I can handle being a sole or senior minister.  “Lack of Confidence” has rarely been a problem in my life… more often the opposite is true.  Most of my major “opportunities for growth” (read as abject failures) come from periods of over-confidence on my part, not the other way around.

And, let me just say that, in my limited experience and from talking to many current and former Supporting Ministers over the last year, it seems to me it is more difficult in some significant ways to be a Supporting Minister than to be a sole or even a senior minister.  I will write more about this in a later article.

These are just two of the myriad of reactions to my accepting an Assistant Minister position.  Now, when I say that I accepted this position because of my reserve military chaplaincy responsibilities, people seem to say “Oh, well, that makes sense, then”, as if my special circumstance makes what would otherwise not be okay, now seem justifiable… and yet many then follow it with, “so how long do you think the military thing will keep you from having a church of your own?”

There are some pre-conceptions and prejudices in our congregations and ministry about Supporting Ministry, about being an Assistant or an Associate Minister, as well as those who are Music Ministers, Congregational Social Justice Ministers, MRE’s or Lifespan Religious Education Ministers and others.  Somehow our Inherent Worth and Dignity of all People does not translate into the Inherent Worth and Dignity of all Ministries.  We see another shadow of this in the perception that those serving in Chaplaincy are not “real ministers” because they have not served in the Parish.

I’m finding that learning to share a ministry in a congregation, learning to support and engage in the called ministry of another minister is a greater and more rewarding challenge, both practically and emotionally, than almost anything in my CPE Residency or Interim Congregational Ministry experiences.  It is building and maintaining an intentional relationship based in Right Relationship and beloved community, in front of an audience of hundreds of congregants, as a model of such Right Relationship.  It is learning to be in good standing with a colleague, not once a month at a chapter meeting or twice a year at a retreat… but every day, amid a sea of potential triangulation and splitting.  It is, for the whole congregation, an intentional exercise in honesty and grace.

As we Unitarian Universalists, through the Commission on Appraisal, are embarking on a study of our faith’s relationship to Ministry and Authority, I call on us to include in our work some engagement with how we relate to supporting ministries: how they function in our congregations, what our attitudes are about them, and where the roots of our preconceptions and prejudices lie.

For our congregations to grow, we need to deal with the lingering image of “One Minister, One Ministry”.

Yours in faith,

Rev. David