Minister’s Column

The congregation made a special vote last week to call me as a settled minister, an invitation which I gladly accepted on Sunday during the worship service. Although I have been serving the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Michigan as full-time minister for 17 months already, up until now my status was “contract minister.” The move to “settled minister” means that this is understood by both minister and congregation to be a long-term commitment. In employment terms, it’s like a college professor being granted tenure. In spiritual terms, here’s how the Unitarian Universalist Association defines settled ministry: The minister is understood to be a professional serving with the people of the congregation to further the purposes of the congregation’s ministries.
 
In other words, the spiritual health and well-being of the congregation, and the fulfillment of the congregation’s mission, are my responsibility in full partnership with every member and friend of the congregation.
 
Even though I had a good feeling that I would be staying, this official act makes it sink in much more deeply: I can settle into this work, and into my pastoral relationship with the congregation, much more fully. In the first year and a half you all have come to know me pretty well—the bad along with the good. I have come to know you pretty well—the strengths of the congregation along with the challenges. And I am getting to know the Mount Pleasant community pretty well–what it has to offer and what it needs from this Fellowship.
 
Now it is time to get down to work: the work of community, the work of mutual care and safety, the work of love and justice, the work of spiritual awakening and deepening. I’m excited for the future we will create together.
 
PRAYER
Spirit of Life and Love, bless the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Michigan. Bless every person who enters its doors and who join on its Zoom calls. Bless the founders and the early visionaries who created this Fellowship; bless those who sustained it through the years; and bless those who are its current members, friends, and visitors.
 
Bless those who served as spiritual leaders to this Fellowship over the years, whether they were called reverend, minister, worship leader, some other title—or no title at all, for true leaders need no title.
 
May the Fellowship thrive long past those of us who now serve it and call it home. May this living congregation be a light of truth, hope, love, and equity today and as far down the path as we can imagine.
 
May it be so.
 
Rev. Andrew Frantz