Welcome, from our Credentialed Religious Educator
Dear Prospective Minister:
I’m very pleased to be able to introduce our congregation to you from my perspective. I have worked at the UU Church of Buffalo for four years and I feel that I am really getting a stronger sense of who they are as a community.
The people of this congregation are loving, vibrant and active in the community at large. We have many young families (over 130 children in the RE program at last count) who have come in the past couple of years and represent a new wave of Unitarian Universalists who are craving spiritual experiences for their children and come from un-churched backgrounds. These young families are also seeking a place of community in which they can be actively involved, although they are also struggling with the time constraints of being largely two-income households or single parent families with limited family time.
We also have several new families who are stepping into leadership roles. During the interim transition, we have had a significant turn-over of families, but our numbers have held at about the same enrollment even after vigorous thinning of names of people we don’t see now. With settled ministry I feel that both enrollment and rate of attendance for those registered will rise.
Our Youth Group is quite vital with around 40 kids registered. They are active in many church events, social justice projects and most especially district youth cons. As of this year, they are also participating in and All-Community worship on a regular basis and often prepare and present elements of the worship.
We have a great collection of Young Adults who are somewhat peripheral to our church. Some are active in our leadership, such as teaching RE and acting as worship associates, and we have several who don’t quite know their place among us. We are working to find ways to support their involvement here in organic ways, but there is a need for a transitional Young Adult group particularly for the 18-25 year range. This year it is the goal of our Lifespan Faith Development team to research how we can reach out to our many area college campuses.
Lifespan RE is a new concept here. Many adults have engaged in classes regarding healthy congregations, Building Your Own Theology, governance training and leadership, and Teacher Development classes. However as we near the end of the search process, we are finding it harder to engage them in classes on spiritual deepening. There seems to be an underlying longing for these classes that is impeded by a lack of time and energy to support the desire. It is my hope that when we are grounded in a settled ministry we can bring deeper programs such as the Wellspring program and Building the World We Dream about to our congregation to build energy.
We are city church, located in the heart of a vital and diverse neighborhood that has held its ground as a progressive center of the city since its inception. We have a fairly significant multi-cultural representation in our children, and several adults of color, primarily in blended families of either biracial marriages or trans-racial adoptions. There are opportunities here to also engage a large Hispanic population as well as immigrants from all over the world. We are a border city that works with organizations such as the International Institute, Journeys’ End, and Vive La Casa. And as in most large cities, we have a large African-American population that might be well served by outreach. This would be a great opportunity for a minister who could prepare our congregation to engage this diversity.
We are also a church that is mindfully anti-oppressive. We are a welcoming congregation with a good showing of GLBTQ members, many of whom are among our strong leadership core. We also have a team currently engaged in field-testing of the disability/ability curriculum from the UUA. As with many other UU communities we may not be as interculturally competent as we’d like to think we are, but, I strongly believe there is a will here to grow on that front with good leadership.
We have an outstanding music program that has had high-quality professional leadership for over 50 years. Our current music director, Daniel Bassin, is classically trained as well as innovative in bringing modern music into our worship. He has an eye toward pedagogy and finds ways to make the music a part of the message on Sunday morning in ways that I have not always seen in UU choir directors. He will be fun to collaborate with.
I myself am a credentialed religious educator. This is my calling; my career. I love to collaborate on services and on the overall themes that we share with our church and would be delighted to work with a minister who is interested in theme-based ministry and building intercultural competence. I engage in professional development regularly, and am currently doing personal coaching to develop my own intercultural competency and prepare to be a stronger leader in general.
Thank you for considering the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo for your settlement. I hope that we will find each other to be inspired, respectful and genuinely collaborative colleagues.
Sincerely,
Sonja Jensen, CRE
Dear Prospective Minister:
I’m very pleased to be able to introduce our congregation to you from my perspective. I have worked at the UU Church of Buffalo for four years and I feel that I am really getting a stronger sense of who they are as a community.
The people of this congregation are loving, vibrant and active in the community at large. We have many young families (over 130 children in the RE program at last count) who have come in the past couple of years and represent a new wave of Unitarian Universalists who are craving spiritual experiences for their children and come from un-churched backgrounds. These young families are also seeking a place of community in which they can be actively involved, although they are also struggling with the time constraints of being largely two-income households or single parent families with limited family time.
We also have several new families who are stepping into leadership roles. During the interim transition, we have had a significant turn-over of families, but our numbers have held at about the same enrollment even after vigorous thinning of names of people we don’t see now. With settled ministry I feel that both enrollment and rate of attendance for those registered will rise.
Our Youth Group is quite vital with around 40 kids registered. They are active in many church events, social justice projects and most especially district youth cons. As of this year, they are also participating in and All-Community worship on a regular basis and often prepare and present elements of the worship.
We have a great collection of Young Adults who are somewhat peripheral to our church. Some are active in our leadership, such as teaching RE and acting as worship associates, and we have several who don’t quite know their place among us. We are working to find ways to support their involvement here in organic ways, but there is a need for a transitional Young Adult group particularly for the 18-25 year range. This year it is the goal of our Lifespan Faith Development team to research how we can reach out to our many area college campuses.
Lifespan RE is a new concept here. Many adults have engaged in classes regarding healthy congregations, Building Your Own Theology, governance training and leadership, and Teacher Development classes. However as we near the end of the search process, we are finding it harder to engage them in classes on spiritual deepening. There seems to be an underlying longing for these classes that is impeded by a lack of time and energy to support the desire. It is my hope that when we are grounded in a settled ministry we can bring deeper programs such as the Wellspring program and Building the World We Dream about to our congregation to build energy.
We are city church, located in the heart of a vital and diverse neighborhood that has held its ground as a progressive center of the city since its inception. We have a fairly significant multi-cultural representation in our children, and several adults of color, primarily in blended families of either biracial marriages or trans-racial adoptions. There are opportunities here to also engage a large Hispanic population as well as immigrants from all over the world. We are a border city that works with organizations such as the International Institute, Journeys’ End, and Vive La Casa. And as in most large cities, we have a large African-American population that might be well served by outreach. This would be a great opportunity for a minister who could prepare our congregation to engage this diversity.
We are also a church that is mindfully anti-oppressive. We are a welcoming congregation with a good showing of GLBTQ members, many of whom are among our strong leadership core. We also have a team currently engaged in field-testing of the disability/ability curriculum from the UUA. As with many other UU communities we may not be as interculturally competent as we’d like to think we are, but, I strongly believe there is a will here to grow on that front with good leadership.
We have an outstanding music program that has had high-quality professional leadership for over 50 years. Our current music director, Daniel Bassin, is classically trained as well as innovative in bringing modern music into our worship. He has an eye toward pedagogy and finds ways to make the music a part of the message on Sunday morning in ways that I have not always seen in UU choir directors. He will be fun to collaborate with.
I myself am a credentialed religious educator. This is my calling; my career. I love to collaborate on services and on the overall themes that we share with our church and would be delighted to work with a minister who is interested in theme-based ministry and building intercultural competence. I engage in professional development regularly, and am currently doing personal coaching to develop my own intercultural competency and prepare to be a stronger leader in general.
Thank you for considering the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo for your settlement. I hope that we will find each other to be inspired, respectful and genuinely collaborative colleagues.
Sincerely,
Sonja Jensen, CRE