Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County

Minister's Page

Welcome to our website! We hope we will see you in person so that you can begin to learn about our wonderful community of religious liberals.

Unitarian Universalism is a religion which invites each individual into a free and responsible search for truth and meaning within the context of community.  We honor individual freedom of thought, and expect that people will grow and change spiritually over time.  We have no creed to which all must subscribe...we affirm diversity of thought and dialogue which is centered in values such as tolerance and compassion. Just as important to us, is making our values work in the world.  We are involved in many ways to bring care and justice to the world. Come join us as we deepen our own souls, celebrate life, learn to love and support one another, and put our common energy to work in the world!

Minister's Monthly Newsletter Column

Rev. Evan Keely is our interim minister until July, 2009.  For Rev. Keely's background and the purpose of interim ministry, please click here.

An important message from Rev. Keely....

2009 will be a year of significant changes at UUCMC — indeed, it will begin with one of those changes: on January 11, we will be trying something new with what happens on Sunday mornings. Instead of two worship services in the Earth Room, there will be one service at 10:30, with religious education for children and youth offered during that hour. At 9:00, a dialogue forum will be held in the Community Room for an hour. It will be very interesting to see how this experiment pans out, but one thing we can say with confidence is that the issues that it explores will continue to warrant further reflection and discussion: Will the dialogue forum meet a whole new set of needs? Will the congregation grow? Is the Earth Room big enough for only one service? If we go back to two worship services at some point, how will we do it — and when will the dialogue forum take place? And, of course: where are we all going to park? It has been an intriguing conversation, and it will continue to be so. I’m looking forward to the ongoing discussion of these issues, and I hope all will feel free to express themselves regarding how they feel about what we’re discovering.

Another big change that will come in 2009 is that a new minister will become the pastor of UUCMC this summer. A superb ministerial search committee has been hard at work on the congregation’s behalf; naturally, the great hope is that a fine candidate will be selected and presented to the congregation in the spring, s/he will accept the near-unanimous call to be the next settled minister, and a thriving new ministry will begin in August. Indeed, this is not infrequently the outcome of these kinds of ventures. However, that is not the only possible way things could turn out. The search committee may decide that none of the prospective candidates is a good match; a candidate who is selected may not be called by the congregation; the candidate may receive a call but decline it. These are less typical occurrences in a ministerial search, but they do happen sometimes. The only things we can say for sure at this point is that the search committee is doing excellent work, and that whoever the next minister is, it won’t be yours truly. The prevailing wisdom in the profession of interim ministry is that three years with the same interim minister starts to feel too much like a settled ministry, thereby undermining the principal purpose of interim ministry: the cultivation of a deeper mindfulness about being in transition. I signed a two-year contract with UUCMC’s Board of Governance, and those are the terms we intend to honor. Actually, many congregations that have gone into a third year of “unintended interim” with a new interim minister have found the experience beneficial. I have every confidence that whatever happens, this robust congregation will continue to learn, experiment, dream and minister in ever new and exciting ways.  It’s going to be a very interesting year.