Sponsoring a Candidate for Ministry

We are writing to you today to invite the whole congregation to be a part of the process of growing the denomination's professional ministry as well as the laity.  Most of you will remember Sierra-Marie Gerfao as our Director of Religious Education about four years ago.  She left us to pursue a degree in divinity and is expecting to graduate in just about two years.

We asked Sierra-Marie to write a letter to the congregation: to share with us her journey, why she would like to renew connections with our congregation through this sponsorship experience, and what she hopes our work together may nurture for the sake of Unitarian Universalists and the broader community of Worcester over the longer term.  Please find this letter below.

We would like your input so that we may represent the full perspective of the congregation in this decision and make a recommendation to the Prudential Committee.  Please contact any member of the committee by Sunday, May 24th, with your feedback after considering this request, and the letter from Sierra-Marie.

Sincerely,

David Spanagel, Vivian Shortreed, Wendy Innis, Seth Popinchalk

The Ministerial Review Committee

Letter from Sierra-Marie:

It has been nearly four years since I left your midst to pursue my Master of Divinity on a path toward hopeful ordination in our Unitarian Universalist tradition. At that time I had spent a little over a decade as a religious educator, and I had (and still have) a deep love and gratitude for that unique ministry even while feeling called to something new. I was especially thankful to have had this calling encouraged and affirmed by so many of you and to have been sent off to Yale Divinity School with your blessing. It has been a tremendous source of strength, courage, and hope as I have engaged in the challenging and also thrilling process of ministerial formation.

On my arrival at Yale in the fall of 2011, I decided to attend school on a half-time basis and to continue working as a religious educator also half-time. This allowed me to contribute to my family financially while simultaneously keeping me rooted in congregational life. There is no challenge more useful in studying church history and theology than being immersed in the day-to-day of a congregation at the same time. I was fortunate to have been hired as Director of Lifespan Religious Education by the Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Society of Madison, CT. During my time there, I worked closely with the congregation's part-time minister, the Rev. Claudia Elferdink (now in New Mexico), who not only supervised me as a staff member, but mentored me and provided guidance to me as a ministerial aspirant.

Part of my formation process has been engaging in vocational discernment. I love parish life very much and feel most at home in the rhythms and relationships of congregations. I would be happy for the opportunity to serve a congregation, but as I have continued my studies at the divinity school, I've increasingly felt that my calling is not in that setting alone. In January of 2014, I ended my work in Madison and took up new work supervising foster care visitations and providing parent education through the YMCA. Shortly after, I enrolled in a joint-degree partnership between Yale Divinity School and Yeshiva University's Master of Social Work program so that I could explore possibilities for social justice and community-based ministry. In those two settings, and in a year-long internship this year at a community hospital through the Clinical Pastoral Education program, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning a set of spiritual assessment and counseling skills, and a kind of ministry of witness that is at once both familiar and new to me.

When I left my work at the congregation in Madison, I spent a little less than a year with Gina and the kids attending a variety of worship services outside of the Unitarian Universalist tradition. As a lifelong Unitarian Universalist, and someone who has spent my entire adult life serving our congregations vocationally, it was important to me to experience forms of worship that weren't so familiar. My family and I were surprised when one of our favorite and most frequently revisited congregations turned out to be an outdoor church on the New Haven green sponsored by an historic Episcopal church and primarily organized by folks from a local Catholic Worker house. There, sirens whir, dogs bark, kids run around, babies cry, people cough, laugh, and talk, and on a rare occasion a couple folks argue and fight, and someone needs to step in. It is one of the deepest experiences I have had with beloved community, and I quickly came to look forward to weekly communion followed by a shared meal. However, over time, my family and I really missed our Sundays in our own faith home, and a few months ago we started attending the Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven. I have also maintained my membership in the (UU) Church of the Larger Fellowship.

I am now just a little more than two years away from graduation. It has been a long and windy path, but I am excited to say that I should complete my Master of Social Work in July of 2016 and my Master of Divinity in May of 2017. As we look toward the possibilities for our future -- acknowledging of course that there are no guarantees and that much can change over the next couple of years -- one of the options that Gina and I have been looking at has been the possibility of returning to Worcester, where we still have a home and a larger community (including many friends whose children attended preschool and kindergarten with our children). It is a place where I can easily envision myself establishing a community-based social justice ministry. It would be my hope, if that were the case, that First Unitarian Church (along with the Holden Street congregation) would be familiar with and supportive of my ministry. It is my deep conviction that Unitarian Universalist community ministers should be well-rooted in, grounded by, and held accountable to relationships with the Unitarian Universalist congregation(s) in their communities.

Aside from this, I have come back to you to ask for your affirmation of the ministerial potential you see in me because you are the congregation that helped draw my attention to this new calling and supported me in pursuing it. This is not an affirmation that I am ready to be a minister. There are many aspects of my training and formation still underway, and I cannot be ordained until they are completed and I have successfully preached to and interviewed with the Ministerial Fellowship Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Last month the Unitarian Universalist Association's Eastern Regional Sub-Committee on Candidacy met with me and granted me status as a "Candidate for Ministry." This means they have seen ministerial potential in me and have given me a set of recommendations for my continued formation. It also means I can make an appointment to see the Ministerial Fellowship Committee in a couple of years, provided that I have a congregation that has also affirmed that I have potential to develop into ordained ministry (I am not asking the congregation in Madison, CT nor the congregation in New Haven, CT because both are in the middle of a ministerial transition). The waiting list for these appointments is no less than nineteen months. Thank you for your time and willingness to consider my request.

Gina, Marcus, and Kayla all send their affection and regards!

Warmly in Faith,

Sierra-Marie