Rev. John Millspaugh Joins UUCSC

September 2002

After much hard work by the Search Committee and months of anticipation, Rev. John Millspaugh in September 2002 joined UUCSC as our settled (permanent) minister.

Report Of The Search Committee For A Settled Minister April 18, 2002

We promised back in June that we were not going to bring a candidate before this congregation unless we were convinced that he/she was the right one! We determined early on that we would not recommend anyone about whom we were not unanimously in favor—no easy task for seven (7) Unitarian Universalists of differing perspectives, ages, beliefs, etc. Remember when I told you that we had sent back our first packet? We were so excited that we were actually going to be able to fulfill our mission of “not settling.” 

We held our first meeting on July 13, 2001 . Almost exactly nine (9) months later our labor has been wonderfully successful! Before I tell you about our Candidate, John Millspaugh, let me give you a brief overview of the things we did.

We met almost every week between July and April. We met with the following people for information and guidance:

• Marylou Reed-Quinn, Ministerial Settlement Representative
• Rev. Ken Brown, District Executive
• Tom Loughrey, District Compensation Advisor
• Dave Kinnear , Chair of the previous Search Committee, UUCSC Board President
• Rev. Anne Hines , Interim Minister, UUCSC

Tasks we accomplished:

• One day retreat to get to know each other and develop a bond of trust and caring
• Completed the Congregational Record to be posted on the Settlement System website
• Completed the Ministerial Profile to also be posted on the website
• Submitted a Total Cost of Ministry compensation package to the Board for approval
• Designed, distributed, collected and tabulated the Congregational Survey
• Held numerous cottage meetings
• Completed our Church Packet to exchange with prospective ministers
• With the Board, selected members of a draft agreement negotiating team, who then drafted a preliminary agreement to be included in the Packet
• Held the “Beyond Categorical Thinking” workshop
• Arranged for “neutral” pulpits at which to listen to and evaluate pre-candidates

Ten very qualified ministers contacted us to express interest in becoming our minister:

• Seven (7) women and three (3) men
• Two (2) ministers requested that their names be withdrawn – one to stay in the Northeast; the other to candidate nearer her husband’s family
• Reviewed five (5) packets and tapes and returned without further action
• Interviewed three (3) ministers by conference call
• Pre-candidated three (3) ministers (two of whom had not been interviewed by phone)
• Spent a total of nine (9) days with prospective candidates

And finally:

We invite you to meet and welcome the person we have chosen to candidate before this congregation:

Respectfully submitted,

Penny Kinnear, Chair, Ministerial Search Committee

Dick Huddlestone, Vice Chair Person, Co-Congregational Survey Coordinator

Janet Hughes, Candidate Communication Coordinator

Gene Johnson, Package Preparation Coordinator

Chuck Lovell, Secretary

Ruth McCoy, Congregation Communication Coordinator

Melanie O., Co-Congregational Survey Coordinator

Excerpts from Rev. John Millspaugh's Answers to Questions Posed by the Search Committee

“I seek a settled ministry in order to walk with integrity by serving the people and the world I care about so deeply, by living up to my potential, and by collaborating with the holy.”

“My call to Unitarian Universalist ministry emerges directly from my life story. I’m the son of two United Methodist ministers who, for some obscure reason, chose to raise me United Methodist. Because we spent equal time living in Hawaii , Minnesota , and Missouri throughout the years, I grew up in churches across the country.”

“By the time I left for college I was seriously questioning the religion I had inherited. My religious certainty faded, then vanished. I became agnostic, then an atheist. In rejecting the monolithic and exclusive God of my Methodist upbringing, I believed I was rejecting the divine itself. I spent years in college studying world religions, impressed with their beautiful answers to life’s deepest questions, yet increasingly unconvinced that any of them fully encapsulated truth. Happily, I stumbled into Unitarian Universalism, which helped me both celebrate mystery and discover new paths to the sacred that I could walk with integrity. In the years since, I have simply fallen in love with Unitarian Universalism—its aspirations, its commitments, its values, its methods, and its community.”

“To learn how ethics related to actual social change, I minored in sociology and spent a semester in South Africa. I arrived in the midst of radical intentional social reform, four months after the official fall of apartheid. I lived with an indigenous Zulu family in a violent, economically devastated township called Ntazuma (which means “ambush.”)”

“On a much lighter note, I had my first taste of organizing when I founded a campus juggling group…”

“I spent my first summer out of college working at a humane society, in an emotionally challenging position that dramatically deepened my compassion and respect for all life.”

“My explorations at HDS [ Harvard Divinity School ] and beyond confirmed my call to Unitarian Universalist ministry. I grounded myself solidly within the UU tradition and practice through Harvard’s student UU community and its classes on UU history, theology, ministry, preaching, and religious education. As the part-time Community Ministries Intern at the UU church of Medford , MA, I began to explore UU parish work and found it a good match for my personal gifts. My work for that church still focused on social justice, like many of my previous roles, but began to incorporate more standard ministry practices, such as pastoral counseling, preaching, and theological reflection. My interest in the ministry was confirmed and heightened.”

“My work came to the attention of the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Rev. Dr. John Buehrens. During my second year in school, I became his Assistant for Public Witness, a position I held for three years. I loved that job, and found it a blessing to occupy. It was a way for me to directly pour my spirit out into the world.”

“I am an amateur magician (member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians), a wholehearted folk dancer, and beginning guitar player. I am beginning to explore my artistic talents with sculpting and drawing—activities that so far have been more fun in their execution than impressive in their results. I also enjoy cycling, hiking, poetry, bodysurfing, swimming, traveling, reading, writing, and listening to music.”

“Some of our most important work as religious communities goes on in our religious education programs. This is obviously true for the education of children. We can inspire their minds and hearts at an early age in a way that can move and sustain them for the rest of their lives. During the year I taught second and third grade UU religious education, my students and I both learned and grew a great deal. As a former United Methodist, I envied “my kids” their UU religious education.”

“Religious education can be invaluable for our youth, to whom religious communities often seem mostly alien, unhip, and irrelevant. Religious education can be one of the few forms of religious activities that make it past teens’ cool filters. Religious education provides training in life skills and support in life exploration that youth would be lucky to get elsewhere. It can also grant teens a space where it is okay to be themselves just as they are. This is all too rare a commodity in adolescent life, and can mean the difference between a teen thriving and throwing in the towel. I support relevant curriculum for our youth, for I know that our religious education saves lives, literally and figuratively.”

“Religious education is no less valuable for adults. There is so much to learn; there are so many ways to grow, and our movement has produced such great curricula! Some of our best religious work for adults goes on in religious education settings that allow small groups of people to self-select and gather intentionally to discuss issues of common interest. I am an enthusiast when it comes to religious education, and would be pleased to offer two or three adult classes myself over the course of a year.”

“I am a Unitarian Universalist. Part of what “Universalist” signifies to me is a true respect for varying theologies. This respect is not some duty to which I hold myself; it is my experience. I do not think I have yet encountered any “Unitarian Universalist theologies with which [I] may not be in sympathy!” This is probably because I have personally lived from or been deeply influenced by so many of these theologies.”

“While I have had considerable practical experience in ministry, I believe I am still in the transition from study to practice. I need honest and caring feedback from a congregation as I practice ministry. What in my ministry helps them feel more grounded and connected to their core spirituality and practice? What do I say or do that seems so separate them from their core spirituality and practice?”

“I was raised as a Christian, then lived for years within agnosticism and later atheism. During that time I studied Buddhism and was taken with its non-theistic but profound way of understanding reality, and the disciplined spiritual unfolding of its devotees. I then took an experiential class on neo-paganism taught by three witches. This eventually led me to participate in recurring Sabbats and moon rituals. Neo-paganism reawakened me to the physicality of spirituality and the wonder of religious experience. My studies of religious humanism and world religions in graduate school left me wishing that I had many more lifetimes to learn about them all more fully.”

“I have yet to encounter a UU theology I do not respect. But if I did, and the theology did not contradict what our movement is about at its core, I would staunchly defend it as a legitimate UU theology. I think one of our greatest strengths as UUs is our theological diversity. As the hymn says, we bring many names, all beautiful and good. The interaction of our varying views only encourages us to growth. I will protect minority theological viewpoints, even if I personally disagree with them. They make us stronger as individuals and a movement.”

“So what is my dominant theology? My own spiritual practice looks a lot like Buddhist zazen, but is actually more mystical in content; I cannot pretend to Buddhism. I suppose the most accurate one-shot description of my theology is “process theology”—I experience the divine (most often) as a vulnerable and evolving force in the universe that beckons us to become more loving, compassionate, and just. By attuning ourselves to this essence and amplifying its blessing into the world, we live lives that are full and fulfilling beyond our normal experience. I believe that the best life consists in serving and savoring that ever-expanding spirit.”

“I am a humanist. As a former philosophy major, I am wedded to the use of reason, the absence of dogma, and the commitment to change our lives and our world through our own efforts. Even though I am a mystic, what interests me about religion is the effect that our spiritual lives have on us here on earth. By “us,” I mean not only Unitarian Universalists, or Americans, or Homo sapiens; I mean all life.”

“That correlates with my continuing interest in neo-paganism. One of the things I appreciate about neo-paganism (and Hinduism, for that matter) is its comprehension that even the best understandings of the divine are simply marvelously useful ways of getting it wrong. For example, when I think of the divine within us, I call it creativity, or compassion, or virtue, or the soul or atman. When I locate it between us, I call it love or deep interchange. When I locate it beyond us, I call it Goddess or God or the Tao. Are any of these true encapsulations of the nature of the divine? No. But they are marvelously useful ways of getting it wrong.”

“Speaking of marvelously useful ways of getting it wrong, I’m grateful for my Methodist upbringing, and some of its hymns and scriptures and orientations are still in my bones. I was raised in a pretty healthy version of that faith, and though I walked away from it in college, I’ve managed to reclaim some of the finest it had to offer. Its stories and the best of its commitments still speak to me.”

“All of this is to say that I am as much a hodgepodge of theological opinions and commitments as most Unitarian Universalists. My dominant theology for the past few years has been process theology, but I imagine that will shift with time. Thank goodness! I look forward to a lifetime of growth within this movement, my spiritual home.”