Each group began with a facilitator from the search committee presenting the agenda, covenant, and objectives for the meeting. Our objectives were as follows: to help the search committee gather information, to have an opportunity for individual self-reflection on our needs and desires regarding calling a new minister, and to build community and, possibly, consensus by listening and being heard.

We then spent about 20 minutes on introductions. All participants shared their name, length of time coming to FUSP, what they do at FUSP, what brought them to FUSP, and what keeps them coming back. This was a wonderful experience in which people had an opportunity to learn about one another and share with one another what this community means to them. The participants were very diverse: both old-timers and newcomers, young and old, active and inactive members and friends. I've noticed that several inactive members have begun coming to services again after participating in a focus group.

 The most common reason stated for coming and staying at FUSP was for the community. People feel like they belong here, and they are a part of something larger than themselves. They form important friendships and relationships. They feel comfortable  and accepted. They describe this community as caring, diverse, genuine, and welcoming.

The second most frequent reason why people came and stayed was for their families. Many families are mixed faith and were looking for a religious home where the whole family felt comfortable. Some parents come only because they wish their children to attend our Religious Education program. For some, they started coming for their children and ended up finding fulfillment for themselves; for others, their children's participation in our programs is what has kept them coming back even through difficult times when they became disenchanted. 

Other reasons why people come are: to learn and be intellectually stimulated, to be cared for in time of tragedy and to give back that care to others in times of need, to feed their spirit, to be encouraged and supported in living their beliefs, to do important work in our church and in the larger community,  and to have fun.

After the introductions we brain-stormed two lists: FUSP's strengths and FUSP's challenges, and spent 15 minutes discussing these lists: Overwhelmingly participants considered the community and people of the church to be its biggest strength. Our community's strongest trait is its caring. We comfort, support, and minister to one another. Milestones is one of the most important parts of our service, and we have a strong caring committee. We also create a warm, friendly welcoming atmosphere. We are accepting and non-judgmental, enjoy listening and sharing openly with one another, have a strong commitment to one another and sense of community, and include everyone. People feel safe here.

Our second strength is the RE program. We have an excellent and experienced DRE, and  a strong program that draws members to the church. We also have excellent programs for adults. Our music program was also mentioned by most groups as a strength.

Our location in a urban community is a strength because of the opportunities in the neighborhood to participate in social outreach and justice work and to increase the diversity of our membership. Our diversity is also a strength. We are more diverse than other UU congregations in the area, especially when it comes to our children. We appreciate diversity and long to increase it.

We are a congregation that enjoys learning and growing. We  have many intelligent, educated, talented, capable people who are committed to the work they do for the church. We have strong lay-leadership and encourage people to participate, learn, and grow. We have a high level of involvement from many members and we do a lot.

We have a long (100 yr) history of which we are proud. We have a good reputation, history in the community, and a legacy of many fine past ministers. In particular we feel that our current interim has done an excellent job of preparing us for the future. We are proud of the way we've survived changes and difficulties together.

We are committed to doing work for social justice. Our anti-racism committee is very active, and we have several outreach programs: housing the homeless, a food pantry,  holiday dinners, etc.. We want to do more.

We have a beautiful, old historic building, to which we have made many recent improvements.

We also have a great deal of diversity of beliefs. We don't only tolerate difference of belief we enjoy it. We all agree on the UU principles and our mission statement.

We have some excellent programs, such as Act IV (a theater group), Women's Alliance, and Men's Breakfast.

Although many in the church see finances as a challenge, some see us as strong in this area as compared with others. We are debt-free, have an endowment and heritage fund, and support a good sized staff for our size.

Finally, we have a lot of fun; we eat well; and there is a feeling of joy and celebration at events.

Almost every group listed finances as a challenge. We worry that pledging is not as high as it should be, and that we don't pay our employees enough. We also do not pay our fair share to the UUA.

Although our location in Plainfield offers us many opportunities it also offers problems. There are economic and racial problems in the area. Some of the surroundings are shabby. We have had to deal with some break-ins and vandalism. Some people do not feel safe coming to the area especially at night. Because many members commute from many different surrounding communities it is difficult to feel connected and involved in Plainfield. We have a desire to become more involved in local community. We would like to work with local organizations to fulfil our responsibility to the community, but we have had difficulty in reaching out and making connections.

Our building is old and requires a lot of maintenance. The parish hall and downstairs are especially in need of improvements. Parking is often a problem on days other than Sunday.

Finding a minister is our most immediate challenge. The circumstances under which our last minister left were difficult and recovering has taken some work. We continue to heal and prepare ourselves to open up and be vulnerable again. We feel a need for security.

 Perhaps because of our lack of a settled minister we have felt lack of focus lately and a need for inspiration and spiritual leadership.

We greatly value diversity and it pains us that we are not more diverse. We wish to increase the diversity of our membership. We are struggling to discover how we can be more welcoming to people of diverse racial and economic backgrounds.

Our involvement in the denomination is something we wish to increase. We would like to pay our fair share to the UUA and feel more connected to the denomination. Some members (especially newer ones) have limited knowledge about the denomination and its values. Our youth have complained that we spend too much time educating them about other religious choices and not enough time teaching our own. We would like to spend more time exploring UU values, how to live them out, and how we can be a part of a larger movement.

Volunteerism is also a problem. We have many volunteers, but they seem to be the same people all the time and burnout is a problem. We seem to have too many jobs for the number of people in the congregation. We are challenged to get more different people involved and deepen the engagement of some populations: like youth and young adults.

Membership is also a challenge. How do we attract more people? How do we keep people connected? How do we make visitors welcome? How do we keep young people? Developing programs for youth and young adults is something we are especially interested in.

Related to membership are continuing problems with publicity. Most people don't know about us. How do we get the word out?

Lately, probably because of the challenges of the past couple years, social events and fun stuff have dropped off. We need to do more fun things together.

We have recently recognized a tendency to avoid direct conflict in our dealings with one another. Little things often don't get resolved well. We need to improve the health of our relationships and communication with one another.

We recognize that our  level of education and intellectualization may turn off some people. Some members have observed that we think to much and don't act enough. We also recognize that we  struggle with some intolerance, internalized racism and homophobia. These are barriers to growth. We are trying to learn and change.

It was much easier to come up with a list of challenges than a list of strengths, which leads to our next challenge: we tend to be to hard on ourselves. We don't believe in ourselves enough. We need to recognize all the things we do and reclaim our strengths. This process is a good beginning.

Our second set of brainstorms followed by discussion were the questions: "What do we need from a new minister?" and "What do we have to offer?"

The greatest number of responses to this question involved character and leadership skills. We are looking foremost for a authentic person of integrity. Someone who  is honest, trustworthy, and genuine. A person who speaks from the heart and who's life reflects their values. We need a minister who is self assured and comfortable with him or her self and others. A person who is stable, dependable, emotionally healthy,  and has good self care practices and a reliable support system.

We are also looking for a leader who will challenge and inspire us. We are looking for a minister with a collaborative leadership style. Someone who is interested in shared ministry and may be interested in exploring small group ministries with us. We need someone who will be able to work well with  lay leadership and other paid staff and is able to see our strengths and encourage and equip us to make use of them. We need a consensus builder who can bring us together as a community and help us improve our relationships and the way we communicate with one another. We need a person who can focus our efforts and find our center. Someone who listens and is able to help us articulate a common vision. We need a spiritual leader who leads by example, and inspires us to be our best selves.

Sermons are important to our congregation. When describing a good sermon the words inspiring, thought provoking, stimulating, and challenging were most often used. We long for sermons that ask challenging questions that we take home with us and keep thinking about for some time. We also want to feel called to live our beliefs and take action in our lives. A variety of suggestions were made about content and subjects for sermons but overwhelmingly we seem to want discussion about current events and timely issues that are relevant to our daily lives outside of church. Delivery,  composition, and clarity of a sermon is also of importance.

Involvement of our minister in the local community and within the denomination is important to us as well. We want our minister to be visible and represent us well to the people of Plainfield and to network with local organizations and churches of other faiths to create opportunities for us to do social justice and outreach work in cooperation with others. We'd also like a minister who can keep us informed about the UUA, help us build stronger connections to other UU churches in the area, and educate our members about our UU heritage and values.

 It is important, however, that our new minister does not overextend him or herself  and remains available to care for and listen to our members. We want a minister who is present to us, involved with us, wants to be here, gets to know us,  cares about us, and enjoys spending time with us. We want a long term mutual commitment.

We are interested in growing as a church, so we need a minister that will encourage growth by working with us to attract new members and bringing energy and passion to our membership, generating new enthusiasm for volunteering and encouraging people to act, grow, and learn.

It is important that our new minister is committed to supporting our RE program, that he or she encourages the involvement of youth and children in the life of the church and is available to minister to them as well.

The personal theology  of our new minister is not as important as his or her ability to be sensitive to a diversity of beliefs and help everyone to feel comfortable and accepted despite their differences. We would like a knowledgeable, well educated, well rounded person who can help people in their personal searches by providing information and resources.

Many of the responses to this question focused on our strengths which I've already listed above. Our location offers many opportunities for social outreach, increasing diversity, and growth. It is a nice mix of urban and suburban. Plainfield is an beautiful, diverse town where exciting things are happening. We are also close to New York City with all that it offers. It is a nice place to live.

We have many excellent programs that are already in place and working well like RE, and the music program. We were involved in the UUA pilot programs for welcoming congregations and anti-racism.

We are a hard working congregation with a large solid core of dedicated members who really want to work with a new minister. We have strong, experienced lay leaders who are eager to share their talents and knowledge.

We are very supportive and  caring of all members of our community including our minister. It is wonderful to be a part of this community.

We are rich in people resources. We are an interesting, talented, intelligent, stimulating bunch of people that are worth getting to know. We are also a pretty diverse bunch in terms of sexual orientation, income levels, geography, age, and beliefs. We are a Welcoming congregation and have a large number of inter-racial families.

We are a mature congregation with a long history. We are emotionally healthy for the most part. Able to work through problems respectfully. We have no deep divisions or cliques in our church at this time. We love to argue but do so lovingly and supportively. We worked well together through difficulties with our past minister and have learned a lot during our two years of search to prepare us for a new minister.

We have a beautiful, well cared for home. An excellent office administrator and other staff who will support the minister.

We offer a decent salary, which we feel is fair. We have made an effort to compensate our staff at the highest level we feel confident we can provide taking other expenses into account.

We are very accepting, welcoming people who don't expect perfection. And are open and ready and eager for a new minister. We try to live our UU principles.

We have rich worship. We are very proud of our lay-led services and hope they are also occasionally enjoyed by our minister. FUSP is a place of learning and growing, for our minister too we hope.

In the remaining half hour of the focus group we discussed participant's reactions to three questions.

Many responded that they are not looking for an intimate or personal friend. A couple thought that would be nice, but not necessary; and a couple admitted that, as a result of what happened with our previous minister, they are still a little fearful of forming another close relationship.

Most expect the minister to be on a first name basis with them, to accept them, and treat them with respect. Youth responded that they would like the minister to know them and not just whose kids they are.

It is very important to our congregation that our new minister be approachable and available to everyone. We want a person who is open and friendly and shows genuine concern for all members. People want to feel comfortable and listened too. We want our minister to be present and involved with us. We expect our minister to offer pastoral care in cooperation with the caring committee. We also want a person who has counseling experience who would be able to offer spiritual help in times of crisis.

We want a relationship of mutual respect and trust, give and take. Someone who draws us in, reaches out to us. Someone we can look to for spiritual leadership who will inspire us through the example of their life.

Many responses to this question mirrored the answers to the question, "what do we need in a new minister?" above. We are looking for someone with an empowering leadership style who can help the congregation build community. We would like our minister to have good people skills and healthy relationships of mutual respect. Someone who will not try to force their opinions on others but will speak their own mind.

Character is very important to us. We are looking for a person of integrity who is trustworthy and sincere. He or she should demonstrate his or her values through his or her life and relationships.

We are looking for a person with intellectual depth who is a good speaker. A person who has a broad background with life experience to share with us. Someone who takes action and makes an effort to improve the world.

We'd like a minister who is stable; good at balancing the needs of self and other. A person who has developed good self care practices, a support system outside of FUSP, and knows him or her self well.

We are looking for a spiritual leader who will inspire us. A positive person who helps each of us to reach our potential. A person who will minister  to us and counsel us with warmth and compassion. A person with enthusiasm who will get people involved. A person of courage who will face challenges with us. Someone who is committed to a long term relationship with this congregation.

There were two big answers to this question. The first has to do with character. A betrayal of our trust: not being ethical, authentic, or honest, would be very damaging. The second biggest possible mistake has to do with leadership style. Trying to "take control"or force an opinion on others, having a personal agenda, not getting to know us and our abilities and encouraging them would be a big mistake. Also mentioned as mistakes are: lack of flexibility, seeing us only as a career move or a short time commitment, and pushing "God" too much.

We ended our focus groups by going around the circle and expressing how we felt about the meeting. Participants expressed many different feelings but primarily feelings of reconnection  and community, gratefulness for being included and listened to, and  hope and reassurance that the search will be successful.