First Unitarian Church in Worcester is also a congregation in the midst of a construction project, including the installation of an elevator. They are, in fact, in year two, of major repair and renovation to their building following tremendous fire and water damage from a fire, which occurred in June of 2000.

Rev. Merritt writes,
Part of the advantage of having an elevator being installed two feet from my office door, is that I can easily listen-in on the construction crew's conversation. It echoes up from two floors below. It rings down the hallway. And in between the drilling, and the chain-rattling, and the pounding, and the sawing, comes some helpful theological reflection.

This particular conversation occurred between a man who was balanced on a 45 degree ladder over a 3-1/2 story, open elevator pit, and the man who was assisting him. The man on the ladder (who gives me a greater appreciation for having been called to the minister), asked for 4 bolts. His colleague said (and I quote), "I'll give you five; you need to have one to feed the pit." Translation: If you carry an extra, you won't feel badly if you lose one.

Now I can only surmise, that this wisdom has been hard won. People who work over cavities of open air have probably learned through experience about gravity. Objects fall. They will fall a great distance when there is nothing to stop them. Ergo: If you are going to suspend yourself over a deep pit, don't assume that everything will go perfectly. Don't assume that a nut or a bolt won't roll away. Assume that additional resources will come in handy. Acknowledge the challenging nature of the assignment. Take a relationship with the pit where you willingly and gracefully accept that it will occasionally need to be fed.

The alternative is simply too costly. To assume that things will go smoothly, that hammers won't drop, that nails won't bend, that parts won't wander, is to place yourself in special danger. Especially when your workplace is at the top of a ladder that is suspended over a 50-foot drop. Even wearing a safety harness (which is worn), it will make the work a lot harder if you get angry and frustrated and have to climb all the way down to get a replacement for what dropped. It is easier to carry an extra in your pocket.

I thought that the elevator construction man's grasp of the presence of chaos, unpredictability and imperfection, was instructive. Elevator pits are, by their very nature, a challenging environment in which to conduct one's life work. But there are all kinds of pits; metaphorical as well as physical. And we are virtually guaranteed a lifetime of frustration and disappointment if we are unwilling predict and prepare for the inevitability of loss and setbacks.

Transitions
Sermon by Rev.Dacia Reid, October 6, 2002

It has been more than thirty years since Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross published, On Death and Dying. In the intervening years her observations that human beings respond to impending death or the loss of a loved one in fairly predictable ways has come close to being common knowledge. We may not remember exactly what her five phases or stages of Dying are - but we have a strong sense that there is a psycho-spiritual process in which we become engaged when we ourselves are facing death or when we struggle with the illness and death of a loved one.

This was an idea whose time had come. Understanding of the Kübler-Ross stages became a part of our cultural landscape fairly rapidly and people began to recognize that similar stages were played out in other aspects of our lives. We've come to accept/understand that we encounter stages of adjustment in response to divorce, retirement, moving away, or staying when a close friend moves, adjusting to parenthood and again when children are grown and our nest is empty.

More recently we've begun to realize that organizations also respond to change in fairly predictable ways, moving through stages that are not all that dissimilar from the stages originally developed by Kübler-Ross.

Within the last 20 years churches have begun to recognize that despite their "holy" mission they are not immune from organizational adjustment cycles. This became particularly apparent to the UUA 10 to 15 years ago when it was confronted with a staggeringly high number of failed ministries. Over and over again, promising new ministries; first settlements as well as experienced ministers changing congregations, failed. Some failed with tremendous bangs and other with dismissal fizzles. Other denominations were tracking similar phenomena and the first serious considerations of intentional rather than place-holding, interim ministry stirred.

A place-holding interim ministry is one in which the minister simply does the necessary ministerial work in the congregation for a year or two while they search for their next permanent minister. Place-holding has its benefits but it did not recognize or attempt to respond to the adjustments that need to occur within a congregation in response to ministerial transition.

When congregations don't get (or take) the opportunity to work through their transitions in a deliberate way the chances, that the next ministry will be disappointing, skyrocket. This is not because the next minister is inadequate or a mistake - but because the congregation is still in the patterns of its previous ministry and is deeply disturbed by the disruptive impact of their new minister - however eagerly they anticipated the arrival.

As a result of this research the UUA committed to adding intentional interim ministry to the services it offers congregations. Recently they have taken it one step further, refusing to provide names of ministerial candidates until a congregation has begun to work with an Interim Minister.

An Intentional Interim Minister does the on-going work of the ministerial position while also keeping in mind and working with the five tasks of Interim Transition.

Actually interim ministry could be summed up as having only one task - helping the congregation be fully prepared to welcome, accept and work with their next permanent minister. Study shows that there are five aspects of this work and that every congregation will need, in some manner, to touch these base points of transition in the course of an interim year.

The Five tasks of Interim Ministry, above and beyond the regular work of the ministry are:
· Exploring History - Celebrating success, honoring challenges and acknowledging and resolving conflict.
· Developing New Identity - which typically includes some amount of grieving over and letting go of how we used to be
· Leadership, power and policy shifts - generally involves a good deal of clarification of policy - which in many instances is a significant shift.
· Strengthening & Utilizing Denominational Linkage - is usually, but not always, straight forward as it sounds.
· Discerning New Direction/s and Commitment to New Leadership - is determining what you want in your new ministry and becoming ready to really embrace and support the new ministry when it begins.

These tasks are listed linearly - rather like the Kübler-Ross Stages. - And just like the Kübler-Ross stages - we don't move through them in an orderly fashion but rather rotate back and forth through aspects of each stage multiple times on our journey toward the next ministry.

My presence here this morning, as your Interim Associate Minister, is testimony to the fact that this congregation is in ministerial transition. The fact that this is an Interim Associate position changes the manner in which those five aspects of Interim work will be engaged. Because you have a strong on-going Senior ministry the interim work needs to be in concert with that ministry and the extent to which the five stages need to be addressed shifts.

It is an interesting challenge - discerning the Interim work that is needed to support your next Associate Ministry within the context of the very fine on-going ministry of your Rev. Kathleen McTigue.

In addition to Ministerial Transition, USNH, living up to its reputation as a "High Achiever", is also actively engaged in two other significant transitions - which have their own adjustment cycles and also effect how we will address the five tasks of interim ministry.

As the UUA and other denominations have focused on the tasks of interim ministry they have also come to recognize that there are other changes that occur within congregations without the departure of the minister, that also play out in stages and require careful attention to the phases of transition.

When congregations undertake a capital campaign there are stages of adjustment that the congregation must traverse. This congregation voted 6 times to proceed with its capital campaign and building project. When a capital campaign is far enough along to actually begin construction - despite the celebration and anticipation of the finished product there is a substantial transition time between breaking ground and occupying the new space during which a congregation will encounter, within its organization, a series of adjustment challenges that echo Kübler-Ross.

If you happen to be here for the very first time today - I imagine that you noticed, as you entered the driveway, that USNH is in the midst of a significant construction project. For those of you who have been around awhile - you know that entering through the RE wing, stepping over unfinished thresholds, looking up into still visible steel girders is a dramatic shift from how things used to be. USNH is definitely in the midst of the adjustments of construction.

And if ministerial transition and the challenges of a construction project weren't enough, USNH is in yet another, less intentional, transition; organizational transition with regard to the size of the congregation.

The people who study churches have realized that churches come in sizes, ranging from tiny family size congregations to huge mega- congregations with 1000 to 10,000 members. In-between tiny and mega there are Pastoral, Program and Large size churches. The size of a church is determined not by the number of members on the books but by the number of members and friends, (children as well as adults) in attendance on any given Sunday morning.

Alice Mann, a Senior Consultant with the Alban Institute for the Study of Congregations, outlines in her book, The In-Between Church the characteristics of the various size churches - she also warns that the transition from one size congregation to another is always challenging.

When Kathleen arrived here 12 years ago this congregation had about 134 members with Sunday morning attendance in the 90s, which made you a Pastoral sized church. The Pastoral size church revolves around the leadership of the minister.

Within a few years, thanks in part to Kathleen's dynamic ministry and in part to the commitment of its members - USNH began to grow and before long had crossed the 150 threshold that delineates a shift from Pastoral to Program Size church. A Program size church reaches out to its members through a variety of programs since it is now too big for the minister to be the primary contact and connection point for each individual.

Over the last year or two, you have reached the 350 mark. Three hundred and fifty adults and children attend worship and Sunday school here on any given Sunday morning. That is a number to celebrate . . . it is the number/s that lead you to initiate your building project. And 350 adults and children in attendance on a Sunday Morning is also a number that signals congregational-size transition. Church researchers agree that the 350 mark is when a church needs to begin shifting from the Program model into the Large Church mode.

. . The transition between sizes is always challenging. For USNH the challenge of size transition is increased and facilitated by your construction project and this ministerial transition.

So here you are - surrounded by transition; a circumstance not unknown to as individuals. That saying about trouble comes in threes - is, I think, really about transition in our lives. It is much less common for organizations to encounter transition in multiples.

We could begin to discern that we have a lot in common with the elevator construction worker that Barbara Merritt described. We are poised beyond the edge of multiple transitions - looking across the gap toward the "promised land" of transition completed.

There is work to do before we get to ride the elevator across the gap between what used to be and what will be on the other side of these multiple transitions.

Fortunately we have a ladder that reaches, we've got a safety harness and we've got those five bolts. Still, at this point, thanks to such a thorough explication of all the transitions here at USNH, some of you may be thinking that the easiest solution is to sit out all this transition time - just wait till its over and then come back.

If you were to make that choice you would miss something important. You'd miss getting to participate in the transition-sprung renewal of this, already vibrant, congregation. Transitions are not just about change - they are also about renewal in response to change.

William Bridges, author of The Way of Transition writes, "The truth is that renewal comes neither by taking a rest nor changing the scenery, nor by adding something new to our lives, but by ending whatever is, and then entering a temporary state of chaos when everything is up for grabs and anything is possible. Then - but only then - can we come out of what is really a death-and-rebirth process with a new identity, a new sense of purpose and a new store of life energy. . . . Renewal is possible only by going into and through transition, and transition always has at least as much to do with what we let go of as it has with whatever we end up gaining in its place." (The Way of Transition, pg 42 - 43.)

The fact that you have three significant transitions underway simultaneously means that the renewal will be that much more pronounced as you reach the conclusion of each of your transitions.

When we feel stressed by the uncertainty or delays of these transitions lets remember: To make sure that our ladder is well balanced That we use the safety harness of careful planning and thoughtful conversation To remind one another to carry an extra bolt of kindness, patience, humor

And finally let us remember that part of what we do here is help each other find answers - because "Under Construction" is better than a either yes or no.

Blessed Be, Amen