As many know, we are in the third year of an interim Religious Education framework, with Dr. Michele Grove leading the process as our Interim DRE. This spring we will be hiring a permanent religious education professional who will begin in the summer of 2021. Our search team is led by Rev. Florence. Members are Lara Breeze Troyer, Carol Veit, and Karla Petersen from the REEF team (our interim religious education team), Joe Omo-Osagie, and Michael Loui. The team began meeting in October, with support from Nancy Combs-Morgan of the Mid-America region of the UUA.

Our first task is to define the scope of the position and the staffing needs of the program. We interviewed ministers and religious education professionals at seven churches in our size range, recommended by the UUA. Based on these interviews, conversations with Michele, and the draft Strategic Plan, we have made recommendations to the Personnel Committee for next year’s RE staffing. Currently we are developing a job description for the Religious Education professional, based on our dreams for a vital and exciting program that fully integrates all age groups into education, justice, worship, and congregational life. We are also exploring non-traditional recruiting to reach a wide and diverse group of applicants, in alignment with the strategic plan goals and our Black Lives Matter commitment.

In January we will be reaching out to YOU through a survey and focus groups. We want to hear what matters to you, and we want to share our ideas with you and see if they resonate (we’re pretty excited about them!). By March we will be interviewing candidates, and hope to make an offer by May.

Stay tuned!