Dear Members of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee,

We, the undersigned Unitarian Universalist ministers, ministerial aspirants, and seminarians, humbly ask you consider reevaluating the requisite career assessment that is currently a precondition for achieving candidate status and to consider pragmatic, more accessible alternatives.

We believe that the required career assessment is doing observable professional, spiritual, and emotional harm to prospective ministers, and we see numerous problematic issues with it, including:

• The fact that the career assessment is perceived by many aspirants as a redundant means test of ministerial competence where, in the context of completion of both a Master of Divinity Degree and a unit of clinical pastoral education, no reasonable suspicion of ministerial incompetence ought to exist.
• The fact that the career assessment is, for many people, a cost-prohibitive burden that risks functioning as a ministerial barrier for financially at-risk or unprivileged Unitarian Universalist ministerial aspirants
• The fact that the career assessment requires ministerial aspirants to be open and honest with seemingly unaccountable strangers with whom they have no reasonable expectation of trust
• The fact that the career assessment involves asking ministerial aspirants invasive and intrusive questions about their personal lives, including ones pertaining to their phobias, their physique, and their siblings' and spouses' health. These and other, similar questions seem wholly irrelevant to aspirants' ministries.
• The fact that the career assessment involves psychological tests featuring yes/no questions that seem so obviously designed to out abusers that abusers could easily lie to conceal their true self without fear of consequence.
• The fact that these same psychological tests also feature yes/no questions related to sexual orientation, gender identity, race, and neurodivergence; these questions could motivate aspirants to perceive themselves as psychologically unfavorable and, thus, lie to conceal their true identity. 
• Other issues that the undersigned have identified in their below comments. 

We understand and appreciate the Ministerial Fellowship Committee's vested interest in forestalling ministerial impropriety within the Unitarian Universalist Faith. However, we are skeptical about whether the requisite career assessment has had any provable, measurable, and/or observable positive impact on keeping improper individuals out of Unitarian Universalist ministry. 

Correspondingly, we are concerned that the career assessment may have functioned- and may continue to function- as an unnecessary obstruction and/or barrier to ministerial aspirants, particularly those who identify as LGTBQ, BIPOC, neurodivergent, and/or financially unprivileged. 

There is an observable shortage of ministerial candidates- one that Unitarian Universalist leadership and clergy have evidently been aware of for a long time. With this shortage in mind, we wonder if the Ministerial Fellowship Committee should be continuing to institute a requirement that many ministerial aspirants and candidates feel is inversely helpful in recruiting new ministers. 

To reiterate: we, the undersigned, are not interested in gutting the Ministerial Fellowship Committee's vetting process. We unequivocally affirm that vetting prospective Unitarian Universalist minsters is important. However, we are not convinced that outsourcing this vetting process to dubiously accountable agencies comprised of strangers who are unfamiliar with our ministries- and doing so at the expense of ministerial aspirants' money, time, and effort- is a pragmatic option. 

We would be open to meetings between members of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee and individuals who have been or may be inversely affected by the career assessment requirement. We hope that you will seriously consider alternatives to the career assessment, such as a review of materials including criminal background checks, seminary transcripts, Clinical Pastoral Education unit evaluations, and letters of endorsement from psychological professionals.

In Faithful Service,