Ben Bear

 noahbearz@aol.com

First Unitarian Society of New Brunswick, NJ: (1968-1973)
Liberal Religious Youth (LRY); Youth Member of Board of Trustees; Youth Advisor.

Professional: Information Services Manager, San Francisco Food Bank

I am very grateful for the gifts this movement and this community have already given to my family and me. I chose Unitarianism for myself as a junior high school student, and I credit the youth group with helping me survive adolescence. Our family joined this congregation when Laurel was in kindergarten. This was our “village” and I credit this community with helping to bring out and reinforce much of what makes me most proud of her. Many of my closest friendships are in this congregation. You have allowed me numerous opportunities to grow, to belong, to try my hand at leadership and to find my voice.

My absolutely favorite thing is when we gather in small groups to share our stories and listen deeply to each other. This is when I feel most connected, not only to the particular group of people I am with, but to our principles and to the wider movement of our denomination. My hunger for these connections led me to bring Small Group Ministry to UUSF, and I have satisfied it also with Adult RE classes, parent groups, house meetings, retreat workshops and working together in the kitchen.

I am very clear that if I were to be on the Search Committee, my role is to do my best to understand and fulfill the needs and aspirations of the whole community, not just mine nor those of any particular group. I hope to have an open mind and a ready ear. I also have to acknowledge that I do not come to this as a blank slate – I’ve been thinking about new directions for this congregation for a while. I don’t want to be on this committee to impose my vision. Instead, I offer these thoughts as examples of the type of conversations I think we need to have in our process of determining our direction.

First, I want to make sure that we take the time to discuss where we are and come to some consensus about where we want to go next. How can we hire a new leader without first having some idea where we want to go? Is this congregation going to be happy with where it winds up if we hire a new minister with the charge “we don’t know where we want to go – why don’t you pick?” I doubt it and I doubt we can come to that consensus in time to post a congregational profile on the web in September. I think the visioning exercises at Ministerial Model Task Force house meetings were a good start, and we need to continue those conversations.

Second, I see this congregation on a collective spiritual journey that has to do with how we deal with differences and conflict. In my time with this congregation, I have seen us go from the extremes of dignity-denying, recreational disputation to obsessive conflict avoidance. Our seven principles charge us with respecting each other’s inherent dignity and worth at the same time as we respect each other’s right of conscience at the same time as we uphold the democratic process. If we can learn to do this -- affirm our differences and our respect for each other at the same time -- then we’d have something that the world around us desperately needs.

Third, even if we were to hire the fifty best professional ministers in the denomination, I don’t believe that they could accomplish, by themselves, all of the ministry that this congregation needs. Those of us who went to the MMTF house meetings participated in an exercise where we tried to choose from among the many ways ministry can be expressed (preaching, pastoral care, creation of worship, etc.) those that we most wanted our next leaders to focus upon. It is my hope for this congregation that we will come to use the word “minister” less as a noun, and more as a verb, and that we will grow as a community in which we support each other in finding and developing our gifts as creators of worship, givers of care, voices of truth, teachers and learners, catalysts, exemplars, pillars of the community, participants, organizational wizards, and all the other ways ministry can manifest.

Fourth, I believe that what we have here is too good to keep to ourselves. For each of us who has found a spiritual home in this community, how many more are “spiritually homeless” because we either didn’t let them know where to find us or we didn’t welcome them sufficiently when they knocked on our door? This means vibrant programs for seekers of all ages, a radical hospitality and a desire to grow – not because we think it will balance the budget (it won’t) – but because we feel that alive and because it’s the right thing to do.

So that is what I’ve been thinking about – how about you? What are your dreams for this community? What do you think we need? Whether or not I’m on the Search Committee, I am so happy to be part of this community at this exciting time as we discern who we are and who we want to become. I’d love to talk with you. Pull me aside on Sunday, or call me at (415) 282-6775 or email me at noahbearz@aol.com.