Excellence in Ministry - Continuing Development

One of the hot-button topics in UU ministry is how ministers might receive continuing guidance after full fellowship. This is almost immediately interpreted as 'evaluation', connecting as a tense band of anxiety directly to MFC Rule 24, which describes under what conditions a minister's fellowship might be terminated. I wonder if there is another way this might be approached.

I just talked with one of the professional chaplains at the hospital, and he described a most wonderful experience with the peer review process that is required of professional chaplains. This is a new process: the Association of Professional Chaplains recently began to require these reviews. Basically, every five years, a chaplain puts together a group of three or more peers for a review. The chaplain meets with them and presents to them for an hour and a half or so. This presentation is like a Quaker 'clearing committee', in which the presenter directs the discussion, and the peers ask leading questions, helping the presenter come to better self understanding of career or related issues.

I wonder if we UU ministers, who often operate so independently, might learn something from a model like this. Perhaps we can learn to give and receive feedback in a supportive way, without heaviness of evaluation pulling us all down. Certainly we all deal with enough evaluation in other areas of our ministry!