If you’ve been following the news on our search for a new minister, you’ve been hearing a lot about this mysterious “congregational record.” We wanted to take a moment to describe that to you in more detail.
The congregational record is essentially a profile that tells interested ministerial candidates all about Wildflower. Every church seeking a minister fills one out. It has basic demographic and church information, such as our teams, programs, and surrounding community. But it also includes our detailed answers to substantive questions that are asked of us, such as our desired strengths in a minister, how we live our values, lessons we’ve learned about nurturing ministers, how we handle conflict, our expectations of a minister in different areas, and much, much more.
We have opted not to put our congregational record on our website, because it’s not the kind of information we necessarily want the public to read. It is available to all ministerial candidates through the UUA’s Ministerial Search website, and we are happy to make it available to any member of the congregation who is interested in reading it. But we don’t believe it is appropriate for the general public.
Beginning this Sunday, December 22, you will be able to find a copy of our congregational record in the Search Team book on the wall of the Community Room. If you would like to receive a PDF copy of it, please email us at search@wildflowerchurch.org and let us know. We would ask that you not share it with anyone outside the church.
You may have questions or comments for us after you read it; feel free to direct those to us at search@wildflowerchurch.org. Please know that the Search Team worked extremely hard to draft answers that represented Wildflower based on your answers in the congregational survey, the cottage meetings, and the focus groups. We understand the impossibility of providing a congregational record that perfectly represents every single person at Wildflower; we strove to write something that represents the church as a whole. We very much hope that you will be pleased with the result.