At Pokagon with Colleagues

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I'm enjoying a little time with colleagues in the next couple of days. The Heartland Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association chapter is in its Winter Conference at the Potowatomi Inn at Pokagon State Park in Angola, Indiana, and last night we "checked in" with each other and had a first worship time. There are more people participating than we've had before (in my experience), including a number of the "Big Boys" from our larger congregations. I'm looking forward to learning from their wisdom and experience.

I am looking forward to today's program with Rev. Stefan Jonasson who is the Large Church consultant from our national headquarters in Boston and who also is the pastor to a number of small churches in western Canada. He is an entertaining folklorist with an extensive business background (in Human Resources/Personnel), and is continuing a presentation he began last year on staff supervision.

Our staff at the UU Church of Flint is small. I supervise a half time Director of Lifespan Learning, Amy Derrick, who in turn supervises volunteer teachers and paid child care workers; a half-time Office Assistant, Cheryl Craig, hired last August, who is a joy to work with and who spends a lot of time with key congregational volunteers; a one day a week Music Director, Pia Broden-Williams, who is a graduate student at Michigan State and a tremendously accomplished singer, and who makes me cry when she shares her gift on Sundays. I will be supervising a Superintendent/Building Manager when he (it looks like) is soon hired, pending reference check and other HR issues, and that person will work with volunteer custodians and other key volunteers.

The task of these next few days is to think about how supervision happens in different size churches. Patterns are set in small, family-sized churches where the members are the staff and where lines of authority are unclear; and the patterns persist even as the congregation grows to having hired professionals. My task, just now, feels like I need to set clearer expectations with the people that I supervise and with the Board members who would like to get in the middle of the supervisory relationships to direct the work of the staff. My encouragement to my Board has been to assert that the strongest possible action by Board members will be to strengthen the Supervisor-Supervisee relationship; when staff members have quesitons about priorities and evaluaiton of their work, that Board members will encourage the staff to speak to their supervisors . . . Well, that's how I hope it will work.

I'm pleased, too, in this setting to be able to "let my hair down" with colleagues, to strengthen our collegiality and, frankly, my affection for them. There are a couple of colleagues with whom I am developing much closer relationships, and I hope that these couple of days (and especially at night over a glass of wine!) will afford some time for frank consideration of how we are doing as religious liberals in this economically depressed part of our country.

It is pretty cold out; but the hotel is warm as are the hearts.

Good morning.