This morning I'd like to speak more personally than I normally do. During my candidating week, the two sermons I offered were polished oratory meant to impress you with my ministerial talents. It seemed much more important to show you I could do the job rather than explain why I wanted the job.

Now that I'm here, I want you to know why I said yes. My reasons will connect who you are, who I am, and what I believe we can do and be together.

The process of searching for a new minister is very difficult and sometimes unsuccessful. It took this congregation two years to find the right one. For those of you who are new or were not active in the search process, you may be wondering how I was selected as your candidate last winter.

The right to call, retain and fire a minister resides completely in the hands of this congregation. This deeply revered tradition goes back 400 years to the time of the Pilgrims who claimed this right rebelling against the ecclesiastical authority of the Anglican church in England. Today, at any one time, there are several hundred Unitarian Universalist ministers and congregations looking for each other.

In the bad old days, the head of the Unitarian Association Department of Ministry would hand pick a minister and send him to a congregation for their inspection and approval. Today, the picking process has become much more elaborate and inclusive. Now a congregation gets a list of names selected to match their individual criteria.

But before congregations get a list, they must do some institutional introspection and figure out what they want in a minister. Because each Unitarian Universalist congregation is autonomous, each has developed a different character and composition. Some in New England retain a Christian identity. Others in the Midwest cherish their Humanism. Some have a strong Feminist, Buddhist or Pagan component to the congregation. The location: rural, suburban, or urban, can have a significant impact on congregational focus. The minister being sought must understand, appreciate and be interested in working with these congregational characteristics.

Just as our congregations are different, so are our ministers. Both minister and congregation have a dream in their mind of who would be a perfect congregation to serve and the perfect minister to serve them. It is the job of the UUA Settlement Director in Boston to bring the two together.

This matching process isn't easy. There is an instructive story about a Christian church in need of a new pastor. They decided to consult the Bible to come up with the profile of their perfect minister. From an analysis of Biblical leaders, teachers and prophets, they narrowed the list down of the necessary qualities to fill the position. They developed a scratch sheet as they dropped potential candidates:

NOAH: No, he has 120 years of preaching experience, but no converts.

MOSES: He stutters; and his former congregation says he loses his temper over trivial things.

ABRAHAM: He took off to Egypt during hard times. We heard that he got into trouble with the authorities and then tried to lie his way out.

DAVID: He has an unacceptable moral character. He might have been considered for minister of music had he not 'fallen' with Bathsheba, Uriah's wife.

SOLOMON: He has a reputation for wisdom but fails to practice what he preaches.

JEREMIAH: He is too emotional, alarmist; some say a real "pain in the neck."

JOHN: He says he is a Baptist but lacks tact and dresses like a hippie. He would not feel comfortable at a church potluck supper.

PAUL: We found him to lack tact. He is too harsh, his appearance is contemptible, and he preaches far too long.

JESUS: He tends to offend church members with his preaching, especially Bible scholars. He is also too controversial. He's likely to offend a search committee with his pointed questions, and his attitude toward money would sink any pledge drive.

At last they found the perfect candidate profile. He seemed to be very practical, co-operative, good with money, cared for the poor, and dressed well. They all agreed that he is just the man they were looking for to fill the senior pastor vacancy.

His name was Judas.

Into this arena of high expectations, the congregation and prospective candidate meet. From a ministerial record sheet your search committee saw something that moved them to decide to contact me for a telephone interview.

Here is what it looked like from my side.

I was attracted to congregations I knew were in search in the Pacific Northwest, California, New Mexico and Florida. One actively courting me was close by in Florida. So when your search committee contacted me, it was something of a surprise.

To get to know each other better, ministers and congregations exchange notebooks called packets crammed with information. As I read your packet I began to understand why the settlement director had sent my name to your search committee. We had a very good paper fit. My ministerial talents and interests dovetailed with your wants and needs.

Yet I had also heard of the problems with your previous settled minister, Rev. Kahn-Schneider. I read the UUA consultant's report. I talked with Eastern New York ministers. I read your bylaws. Along with the paper fit, I also saw a lot of paper reasons to be cautious. With a feeling of fear and excitement I agreed to pre-candidate.

This is the next step in the settlement process. The pre-candidate minister comes secretly to visit for a weekend and speaks in a nearby pulpit. It gives both the minister and the search committee a low profile way to meet each other and flesh out the fit. Our late October meeting went very well. I greatly enjoyed my conversations with your search committee. The weather was beautiful. The Schenectady congregation warmly received my sermon. As I was flying home, I felt confident I had done the best I could and excited at the prospect of coming here.

Of course, I wasn't the only person your search committee looked at. I expected tough competition for a congregation as good as this one. Your search committee told me they'd be giving me their decision in December. To protect myself from potential rejection, I tried very hard to be realistic. "Did the search committee really see who I am and the strengths I could bring?" I asked myself. "Did we really understand each other as I thought we had or was it my imagination?" With each day of waiting, and negotiating with other prospective congregations, the pernicious disease of doubt ate away at me. Maybe the match wasn't quite right and I should take another offer. This is the most agonizing part of the search process as each party reflects on what they know and what they don't know and tries to make a decision.

When I did get the telephone call, the doubts evaporated, and I gladly accepted your invitation to be your candidate.

Being selected as your candidate doesn't automatically lead to becoming your settled minister. Much work and testing is required. I had to successfully negotiate a contract with a special team headed by your crackerjack negotiator, Reese Satin. My family had to decide they wanted to leave the warmth of the south for the frozen north. I had to check and see if the image of you presented to me by your search committee matched who you really are. And most important of all, the vast majority of you had to decide I was the right minister for the job by casting your ballot in my favor. All this had to be accomplished in a short nine-day January visit.

The easiest concern to deal with was the weather. Philomena was raised in Buffalo so she was familiar with what she was getting back into by moving here. I'm promised the weather here isn't quite as bad as Buffalo. We'll see. Andy enjoyed playing in the snow when he came up and didn't seem intimidated by the cold. "So far, so good," I thought.

Immediately I was impressed with the strength of the congregation's committee structure and activities. I counted over half the congregation actively involved teaching on Sunday morning or serving on a great number of boards, councils, and committees. In Port Charlotte, I could barely have counted maybe 25 active energized, people young enough to do much.

What greatly excited me was the fact you had a great mission statement. Having struggled and failed for three years to get my congregation excited about developing a sense of purpose, I was pleased to see what you had already accomplished.

The reason such a statement is so important has to do with our Unitarian Universalist identity. Everything the Unitarian Universalist Association says and does is optional for us. All power and authority resides with each congregation. It is up to each church, society and fellowship to define themselves and take stands.

Many of our congregations will fight about the issues free religious communities must face without effectively communicating or settling them. This creates a great drain on a congregation's potential energy. It is like the two movers who were struggling with a huge crate, trying to get it through a doorway. After strenuous but futile effort, they were both exhausted. As they sat the crate down, one of them said, "I give up - we'll never get this thing in here." "In there?" said the other one. "I thought we were trying to get it out!" Each agreement a congregation hammers out democratically releases potential energy, opening the way for action.

FUUSA is not like these timid, wilting violet congregations. You have a history of taking-on the tough issues. You fought the five-dollar vote. You provided sanctuary to Central Americans. Today you offer a welcome to Bosnian refugees. You made a conscious decision to become a Welcoming Congregation. You started two services to make room for more people who are attracted to Unitarian Universalism. And you came up with this great mission statement I've recast as for a chalice lighting. These steps didn't happen at Board meetings but rather in full debate at congregational meetings. This is a group ready to make a decision and move forward.

This is the reason I'm so excited about our Startup Weekend at the end of October. This congregation was getting ready to make some big decisions right before the troubles with Joan. I keep hearing about a lot of pent-up energy to move forward in this congregation. Over the last three to four years, people have been saying, "let's wait for the new minister before making this or that decision." Now that I'm here, its time once again to begin moving forward--together. We need to talk publicly and openly together about where we want to go and continue turning our mission into action.

With a clear sense of congregational priorities, I can focus my energy preaching, teaching and pastoring to support our goals. Rather than functioning independently, we can function interdependently in a way that will be mutually supporting and affirming.

While these institutional strengths and opportunities were very attractive to me as I met with you during my candidating week, it wasn't the linchpin that convinced me to come. It was meeting you and getting to know you that convinced me I wanted to be here. Again and again I liked the people I met! In fact, I don't think I've met anyone I couldn't appreciate. This is just the kind of congregation I would want to join myself.

When all is said and done, this is the bottom line question for every minister considering a call to a congregation. The geographic and financial questions, the feeling of the sanctuary and the strength of the infrastructure, all pale before the fundamental question, "Can I put the well being of this society first? Can I give my energy without reservation as I will, at times, be called to do? Can I love and serve this congregation?"

On the day you voted on my candidacy, my answer was clearly and without reservation, YES! The feeling has only grown stronger as I've gotten to know you better.

I'm glad you agreed.

My point this morning, if you haven't heard it clearly, is you are a wonderful congregation. There is so much that is good about the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany. I feel like I've had an incredible stroke of good fortune to be called into your service. The potential for what we can do and be together is just tremendous.

And, of course, neither of us is perfect. I am still young in my years of ministry. I hope you will assist me in growing in my ability to minister to you. Likewise, I will be helping your leaders grow in their ability to serve you as well. Every democratic organization is always in a process of renewal as the old leaders hand on the gavel to the new ones bursting with fresh ideas.

What will insure our success is the quality of love we bring to each other. I have a deep faith in the guiding wisdom of the love, which binds us together. With skillful means, that love will guide us through the night and into the dawning of a new day.

Let us learn from the past while striving to move beyond it.
Let us work together to make our ministerial partnership the greatest this society has ever known.
Let us move forward together sustaining the light of liberal religion in the city of Albany.

Copyright (c) 1999 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.