Our Next Minister

We have ambitious hopes: we’d like a minister to foster fellowship and community within our congregation as well as present stimulating and challenging worship services. Organized, well thought out sermons are important, as are excellent communication skills. 

We seek someone to challenge us spiritually, morally, and intellectually; 
to deeper understanding, compassion, and action.

We’re looking for an open-minded person with the ability to draw from a multitude of religious and spiritual practices. Approachability and personal warmth are key to maintaining meaningful and functional relationships with members and staff. A sense of humor is a real plus, as is the ability to be open about the personal foibles of our shared humanity. Ideally, our next minister would be both a good listener and a good storyteller.

With a yearning to be stretched, we’d like our spirits to be filled up on Sunday with inspiration that spurs us to go out into the world on Monday and do good things. But we also recognize that healing and rejuvenation need to take place within and among ourselves, and we’d love our minister to help create a space for renewal and relationship-building.

Lastly, we seek a minister who, with compassion and insight, can see a path to making our parts work together to unlock our great potential. A minister who works collaboratively with staff will likely be most effective. An ability to guide committees to alignment on goals and to support lay leaders in finding their callings is vital. In the end, we hope our next minister will help us distill the vision we feel percolating beneath the surface of First Parish, waiting to be brought forth in the next step on our journey as a congregation. 

Whom We Seek

Interested? Next Steps
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In general, we will be following the guidelines for pre-candidating laid out in the UUA Settlement Handbook. 

After the Committee and prospective ministers have mutually reviewed packets, a phone or Skype interview will be arranged with those ministers with whom we would like to confer further. Thereafter, a maximum of four candidates will be invited to a pre-candidating weekend to visit our Milton campus, then to preach at a nearby neutral pulpit, and then to have an in-person interview with the Ministerial Search Committee.

We will reach out to our chosen candidate in April, 2016. If the candidate accepts our offer, the terms of agreement will be settled, further references will be contacted, and a criminal background check will be completed. The candidate and his/her family will then come to First Parish for an extended week, meet parishioners and staff, and present two consecutive Sunday Services. Following the second service, the congregation will hold an all-Parish meeting where a vote to call the candidate will be taken with the goal of receiving a positive response from at least 95% of the congregation.  



First Parish Milton, 535 Canton Avenue, Milton, Massachusetts 02186 ~ Email: office@fpmilton.org ~ P:617.698.6329 ~ http://fpmilton.org/