Dear Members and Friends of UUFH,

At our April meeting, the UUFH Board voted unanimously to extend our Interim Ministry period to a third year. A number of transition tasks remain to be completed, and we will certainly continue the work toward their completion. But COVID-19 has presented us with many unexpected challenges. Once we made the judicious decision to stop meeting in person, the Board, staff, and congregation turned their full attention to rethinking “community”, and how to survive (both literally and figuratively) during this time of crisis. Because of the pandemic, we have extended the duration of our stewardship campaign, and it could be four or five months before we can get back on track with the work of Interim Ministry.

Board members share the view that the congregation needs time for more reflection and conversation to define how we see ourselves as a Fellowship, to explore our differences, to strengthen our leadership capabilities, and to develop our vision for moving forward. Some of the deliverables we could create during this extra time might include development of and preparation for leadership school, covenant groups, staff turn-over, new Board member orientation, Welcoming Congregation designation renewal, and much more. The Board, the Transition Team, the Governance Task Force (GTF), the Personnel Committee, the Social Justice Outreach Team (SJOT), and other leaders throughout the congregation are working on these issues. The current estimate for completion of the GTF work is the end of fiscal 2020/2021. Once that work is done, the Congregation will need help during the following year to put the new structures into place, work out the kinks, and settle into them.

As your governing Board, we believe that UUFH is not yet ready to begin our search for a settled minister. We also understand that, in the wake of the pandemic, the pool of potential ministers looking for settlement will be smaller this year. It is possible we might have been able, during a normal two-year interim period, to get from where we were to where we want to be but, with time lost and our attention necessarily redirected, we believe a third year of interim work will put our congregation in a better position to move forward. So, as we prepare a contract for the second year of interim ministry with Rev. Don Rollins, we do so in the profound hope that this time next year we will be engaging him in a contract for a third year, as we enter into a search for our settled minister.

Yours in Fellowship,

Susan Grider
Michael Yates
Jan Partin
Harry Corrigan
Becky Elston
Ed Law
Susan White
M.C. Gaylord