Some links from Pacific Central District's "PCD Currents"

From Cilla Raughley at the Pacific Central District, in a recent newsletter article about Committees on Ministry. Some of these listed in my previous entries, some new:

• Committee on Ministry Not Just For Ministers (from UUA Interconnections)
• Creating Effective Commitees on Ministry Q & A (from UUA General Assembly 2001)
• A Guide to Mission-Centered Ministry (from UUA General Assembly 2004)
• Resource Reader for the Committee on Ministry (Thomas Jefferson District)
• Three Examples of How to Structure Such Committees (from the UUA)
• An Assessment Tool for the Committee on Ministry (from the UUA)
• An example of congregational communication from the UU Congregation of Princeton, NJ

Please share your congregation's Committee on Ministry Mission Statement

Does your Committee on Ministry have a mission statement or similar document that works well for you? If so, I plan to start posting some examples here and would love to hear from you. If you click on my name (Ann Jacobson) under "Contributors" towards the top, you'll find my e-mail address listed.

More information on Mystery Worshippers

I received this information in an e-mail from Cilla Raughley, District Executive, Pacific Central District of the UUA as a correction/elaboration on my posting about the Mystery Worshipper program at the Los Gatos congregation. "Our Mystery Worshipper program was not created by Los Gatos, but they were our first congregation to use this service. We charge $100 in return for two visits from our highly trained volunteers [the fee goes directly back to them to cover their expenses], spaced about 3 months apart, and two very comprehensive reports."

Presbyterians have COMs, too!

Check out this Committee on Ministry Handbook from the Presbyterians. Note that this links directly to a PDF file so depending on the speed of your internet connection it may take a while to load.

First Parish of Sudbury's COM Web Site

The First Parish of Sudbury's COM page has links to their charter, notes from training, results of a survey they conducted, and more.

Neat Idea From the Los Gatos Church

Ever heard of "secret shoppers?" Well, the Los Gatos church came up with the idea of "Mystery Worshippers." They asked the district to send someone to anonymously visit the church and to report on his/her impressions. Their two Mystery Worshippers' reports are linked from their Committee Reports page.

UU Church of Arlington COM and Search Committee Joint Survey

This document in Microsoft Word format summarizes the results of a survey that the UU Church of Arlington conducted as a joint effort between their search committee and their COM.

Miscellaneous Resources from the UUA Web Site

Here are a few resources related to COMs from the UUA web site:

• Committee on Ministry Not Just for the Minister
• (to be continued later, as the UUA web site appears to have just crashed!)

Thomas Jefferson District

The Thomas Jefferson District is a gold mine of Committee on Ministry-related information! Some of the materials available include:

• Descriptions of Committee on Ministry
• Committee on Ministry Schedule
• Models for Evaluation of Ministers/Congregations
• Criticism in Ministry
• Case studies, and more. All linked from their Resource Reader for Committee on Ministry
  
• Complete document as one pdf file
  

UU Congregation of Princeton's Committee on Ministry

By a complete coincidence, when I did some googling looking for other church's committee on ministry sites, one of the first that caught my eye was this one from Forest Gilmore's "new" church! It looks like they've been doing (or recently did) some thinking on the purpose of their COM. So take a look at Princeton's Committee on Ministry site.