Calling Committee News – May 2008
The American Heritage Dictionary defines “patience” as “the capacity of calm endurance.” The job of calling a new rector to lead us at Christ Church is most definitely an exercise in patience.
We on the calling committee must calmly endure the “process.” And it is, indeed, a process. First a parish profile needed to be composed (no small feat). Then the qualities we desire in a rector needed to be debated and determined (as one candidate put it, our new rector doesn’t have to walk on water, but he/she needs to be a good swimmer). Then we had to wait for the word to be spread via the Diocese. Interested candidates need to be vetted by the very busy Canon Jenny before we get their paperwork. Each committee member then reads the submitted paperwork and gives careful thought to each application. Then we meet and go around the table, with each and every committee member giving their prayerful and thoughtful response to the materials submitted.
From there we decide to set up phone interviews for some candidates and to send our heartfelt regrets to others whom we don’t feel are called to lead us at this time. We’re in the phone interviewing process now (though we have new candidates to consider as well – the list is continually evolving). We’ve had three phone interviews and have two additional ones scheduled (so far!).
And we have it easy when compared with the parishioners of Christ Church. At least the calling committee knows what’s going on, that things are progressing, that we are moving forward. Our Christ Church family is in the dark—trusting us, having faith in us, calmly enduring the seemingly glacial pace of our efforts.
And our wonderful candidates are patient, too, waiting for the next word on how things are proceeding. Is Christ Church is the place God wants them to be?
All of us will know the answer to that question in God’s good time. May we all calmly endure until then.
Almighty God, giver of every good gift: Look graciously on Your church, and so guide the minds of those who shall choose a rector for this parish, that we may receive a faithful pastor, who will care for our people and equip us for our ministries; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Christ Church Calling Committee
Steve Crawford
Alejandra de la Lama
Mark DeMichele - Chair
Nancy Iverson
Betty LeMoyne
Don McCleary
Ed Morris
Nancy Roberts
Yvonne Rowe
Sarah Shealy Stump
Laura Taylor - Co-chair
Susan Warmbrodt
Jonathan Williams
Chaplains to the Calling Committee: Marjorie Rahill and Mary Gwen Brummitt
Link to Power Point presentation given by The Rev. Canon Jenny Vervynck on the Calling Process.