December update

The following was delivered by PNC member Karen Rissman at all three services on Sunday, December 16.

Good morning.

My name is Karen Rissmann, and I am a member of the Pastor Nominating Committee.  When the committee first began to meet it was a bit daunting for me. I am the baby of the group in terms of length of membership, having only been a member here a few years, while many have been here 20 years or more.  I wondered what my contribution would look like.

Of course, God had a plan, He always has a plan. Our committee is representative of all aspects of our congregation. We are stronger for the variety of perspectives each of us brings to the process. I love Jeremiah 29:11, which says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I have a strong sense that the Lord’s plan to give Whitworth Community Presbyterian Church a hope and a future is being revealed to us. I know in my heart that the Holy Spirit is with us daily as we discern who our new pastor will be through the process we are pursuing,whether it be guiding us through prioritizing important characteristics and strengths or being with us through prayer.

Currently we are in the midst of interviews which have produced significant and inspiring conversations with a number of wonderful candidates.

All of us would like to personally thank you for your continued patience and prayer support. As we are now in the season of Advent, a period of time designated in the church calendar for waiting, it seems even more appropriate to guide our thoughts and prayers to the work of the PNC and the discernment process.

Please continue to look at the PNC blog for the latest news as you are able, check the Chimes, or visit the bulletin board outside Pastor Steve’s office.

Finally, I would like to remind you of what the apostle Paul wrote as a prayer in his letter to the Ephesians, chapter 3, verse 20.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

Mission Study posted

WCPC's mission study, written by interim pastor Keith Tanis and adopted by the session in April, is now available as the last of the links on the right hand column. The content was informed by a Church 360 survey, and is intended to serve as a source for documenting where we are currently as a congregation and where, in the author's educated opinion, we might consider heading in the future.

It is shared here as a starting point for ongoing conversation with potential candidates for the WCPC head of staff position.

An update during worship

The following text was presented during all three worship services on November 4.

Good morning. My name is Tad Wisenor and I am blessed to be a part of the Pastor Nominating Committee. The twelve of us on your PNC are very different people, and represent a pretty wide swath of the congregation, from our ages and genders, to our walks of life, and even our opinions on a lot of what is happening in the church today. However, we all agree on the most important things, including that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, the Bible is the word of God, and the Holy Spirit is at work in this congregation right now. For such a time as this we have been brought together and have been serving since January of this year.

Here is what I want you to know about the Pastor Nominating Committee’s search for our next head of staff:

First, we are painfully aware that this church has been without a permanent senior pastor since June of 2010, and we are not interested in this process taking one day longer than it needs to. Our families are more excited for this journey to come to fruition than any of the rest of you in this room. Trust me on that.

We are, quite frankly, excited about our pool of candidates, and as we have read applications, listened to and watched sermons, and communicated with men and women from all over the United States and even around the world, out of more than 140 applicants, we have narrowed down the list significantly. Some incredible servant leaders have chosen to consider coming to this church, and we are humbled.

Within in the past few weeks, we have entered into the formal interview process with a small number of top candidates and are excited to begin this phase of the journey. But, we are not done looking. We continue to be in conversation with potential candidates, as we have decided to accept new Pastor Information Forms from interested parties until we enter final negotiations with our candidate-of-choice.

So, while I can’t yet tell you when we will be finished, I guarantee that it will be worth the wait.

We will be thrilled to come to you with a final candidate, and when we do, we pray you will extend her or him every measure of patience, kindness and grace that you continue to show us, your PNC. Thanks for your continued prayer on behalf of this committee, our church and our new head of staff, whoever that might be.

Several of us will be available up front after the service if you have any questions or suggestions, but try as you might, we will not give you a date for when this process will be completed. When we know, you will know. I promise.

Thank you.

Two little words

It has been a while since two little words meant so much to a group of people and to this church. You see, go to the page in the right hand column of this blog titled "Steps to Calling a New Teaching Elder/Head of Staff" and then look at number six. The words "in process" were just added to the next step in our journey of discerning and calling our new senior pastor.

Two little words...but two little words that represent months of hard work, hours and hours of sermon review and weekly meetings of two hours or more. We have received well over 140 PIFs now and have narrowed them down to our first group of candidates with whom we will proceed with a variety of interviews in the weeks ahead.

There are many other great candidates still in the mix. In fact, we are still receiving and processing new PIFs weekly. We have been blessed with a solid pool of interested, educated, and Godly people. But for now, we are moving forward with a select number.

No telling how long this next phase, or the one after that, will take. But we are in good hands--God's hands--and tonight, the 12 members of your PNC are happy about two little words.

Thanks for your continued prayers.

Cultivating Community

I thought it might be nice to take a quick break from the news of the search (yes, we are making progress, listening to oodles of sermons, and connecting with candidates) to share a bit more about a fascinating by-product of this process for those of us on the PNC...community.

Gregg Larson led a short devotion for us recently that centered on a section of Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life. In it, Warren suggests that in order to cultivate community, you must have:

• Commitment
• Honesty
• Humility
• Courtesy, and
• Confidentiality, and that the process requires
• Frequency

Throughout the devotion I was intrigued at how well he was describing our odd little group and how much of a community we have become in nine short months. In some ways, it was when we jumped to meeting weekly a month or so ago that things really came together (the frequency part of the equation).

Trust me, there are some very distinct personalities and differences of opinion represented on this PNC, but we have all chosen to make the commitment to our task, discerning God's chosen leader for our congregation, paramount. In doing so, we have been called to be honest and treat each other courteously in our disagreements. We have also shared deeply of our own hopes and dreams for WCPC, acknowledging that some of these dreams may at some point be mutually exclusive. That said, the commitment to Jesus, to our process and to one another has been wonderful, and we are convinced the person is out there who will be the right choice for all of us.

Because the Holy Spirit is at the center of this experience, binding our 12 flawed selves together, it is a beautiful, if taxing, journey. We are working hard, and we are tired, and we are at the same time deeply thankful for the opportunity to be part of this amazing time in our church's development.

We look forward to sharing more details as they emerge in the months ahead. We are especially thankful for your prayers (and that peach cobbler was awfully nice, too).

God's Time

Two years. It has been more than two years since Pastor Rob left and almost two years since Pastor Keith arrived to serve as our interim. Surely, many of you must be thinking, we should have a new permanent pastor by now. Well, while we have continued progress to report, we also want to help you all manage your expectations.

First, while it has been two years since Rob returned to Indiana, it has only been eight months since the first meeting of the Pastor Nominating Committee in January 2012. Once a PNC is elected, it can often take several years to successfully complete a search. We are making no efforts to guess when we will be done, one way or the other, but you can always track our progress on the page at the right titled “Steps to Calling a New Teaching Elder/Head of Staff.” There are effectively seven action steps listed there, and we are knee deep in step five.

Second, we believe we have been called to do more than fill a vacant position. We want to do more than just find a person for the job; we want the right person, the one God has already chosen. Discernment takes time, as does clarifying processes and making connections. Beyond just sitting back and watching the pastor information forms roll in (nearly 90 in less than eight weeks at last count), we have been actively networking and asking others who know our church well to recommend potential teaching elder candidates to us. In many cases, these potential candidates are happy in their current calls and do not even know that they should be considering WCPC.

We are praying for patience. We are as excited about welcoming our new teaching elder as you are, but we are also committed to holding each other accountable to doing this process God’s way, bathed in prayer, and seeking unity in Christ. We are very pleased with the gifts for ministry represented in our candidate pool to date, and know of many more interested candidates who have yet to apply.

As we are now able to begin narrowing the pool into a short list of top candidates, the PNC has chosen to begin meeting as a large group weekly instead of bi-weekly so that we can move forward at a more efficient pace (and shorten our recent marathon three-plus-hour meetings to a more manageable length). We know that the most gifted people in our pool are likely to surface in other searches as well, and we want to honor the process by moving ahead with those folks who sent us their information early on.

Finally, many of you have asked us how you can help. From the beginning, we have invited you to share names of those you believe would be a good fit. In addition, we have asked for prayer, but we have not provided you much detail to guide your prayer. Here then are specific requests for prayer for your WCPC PNC:

·      Discernment. Your PNC is made up of 12 different people with very different opinions. Like-mindedness as we narrow our search is clearly a gift and product of the Holy Spirit.

·      Energy. Summer is a time for rest and renewal, yet the PNC is choosing this time to ramp up what is already a significant commitment of time. Please pray for energy and health for us.

·      Patience and perseverance. We feel pressure from many directions to complete this search. That said, this process will unfold in God’s time. Pray for patience and perseverance for the PNC, WCPC staff and the congregation.

·      Families. This process has an impact on many spouses and children as we are away from home or glued to a computer for significant extra hours each week. Please pray for our families.

·      Our next leader. God is already preparing our next teaching elder/head of staff. Please pray for her/him and her/his family and for the significant life transition that awaits them.

Bill Yakely has been sharing excerpts from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book “Life Together” as we open our meetings. This last week’s message encouraged us to remember the abounding grace of God that allows us to live together in community. Those of us on the PNC sense to a person that we are part of a significant grace-filled community and sharing in a very special journey of discovery. Thank you for your continued trust, patience and prayer.

And now the work begins...

Not to be misleading, as we have been working hard since our first meeting in January of this year, but the work is different now, as the PNC begins processing PIFs (Pastor Information Forms) from interested candidates. So far, more than 60 people have either been matched with our stated needs by the denomination or "self-referred," sending us their information because they are interested in our position and have found it on their own. Many of them know our church and have already been tracking our progress. We are following up on leads via e-mail and phone, and are reviewing every application multiple times before discussing our top tier of applicants as a full committee.

This is meaningful and taxing work. Words on a page (or screen) can only tell part of the story, and we are seeking discernment and God's nudging as we choose where to invest the additional time needed in conversations and eventually formal interviews.

That said, we are thrilled that so many qualified people are interested in our church. There are many compelling stories within this group of early applicants, and we are steadily honing in on the kind of leader we can collectively envision for our church in the future.

Thank you for your attention, your continued prayers, and your patience.

Time to get the word out!

The WCPC PNC is now prepared and excited to begin receiving Pastor Information Forms from candidates for the position of Teaching Elder/Head of Staff, which may happen as early as next week once the PCUSA office in Louisville posts the position.

On the right hand side of this screen, you will find a list of pages. The last one, added just now, is the Church Information Form we have been working on for the past several months. We encourage you to read it, pray about it, and consider ordained pastors you might know who posseses the experience, skills and spiritual gifts we are looking for in our next head of staff.

You are certainly encouraged to share this CIF with any who might be interested, or if there is someone you think should receive a personal contact from a member of the PNC, please let one of us know or email us at whitprespnc12@googlegroups.com.

Over the next several weeks we will continue refining the process through which we will consider every applicant, as we work toward discerning the individual who will next serve our congregation as WCPC's Head of staff.

"I AM"

PNC member Bill Yakely shared a helpful word with us at tonight's meeting. It is a wonderful encouragement to live in the moment. As the PNC continues to make progress at a deliberate, but perhaps not blistering pace, it is easy to think that nothing is happening, and we begin fretting about the future over which we hold no control. Rest assured, "I AM" is in charge of this process, and we are regularly seeking his presence, moment by moment. Perhaps you will find this piece by Helen Malicoat helpful as well.

I was regretting the past
and fearing the future.
Suddenly, my Lord was speaking.
"My name is I Am."

He paused. I waited. He continued.

"When you live in the past,
with its mistakes and regrets,
it is hard. I am not there.
My name is not "I was."

When you live in the future,
with its problems and fears,
it is hard. I am not there.
My name is not "I will be."

When you live in this moment
it is not hard. I am here.
My name is "I AM."

Exciting hurdle cleared

I just took the liberty of updating the page on the right hand side of this blog that outlines the eight steps we must take to call our next head of staff. I was able to mark number three as "complete" and list number four as "in process," which might not seem like such a huge thing, unless you realize that the Church Information Form (CIF), the primary document we provide to the denomination and any potential candidates, is now complete.

The PNC and session met a few weeks ago to discuss the draft and shared a meaningful time of conversation and unity around the direction we are heading as a church.

Then, last Monday night, the CIF was formally approved by Session at its monthly meeting and has been sent on to the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest Committee on Ministry for their approval in early June. Once approved there it will be sent to Louisville to be posted as an open position (and posted here for your consideration).  At that point candidates may start applying for the job.

We know there are a lot of people interested in this position, as we are already hearing from them in various ways, but the formal start to the search phase will begin when potential candidates are officially able to send us their Pastor Information Forms (PIFs) and we are also able to begin making contact with our network of friends, Presbyterian pastors, and others in the denomination, encouraging them to consider the opportunity or help connect us with other pastors who might be a good fit for our church.

This is a very exciting time for our church and we give thanks for your continued support and prayer.

Progress, Prayer and Patience

While this post could easily be a quick report of great progress, since we will soon be sending the Church Information Form to the WCPC elders for their input and eventual approval at a session meeting in the near future, it is important for those of us on the PNC that you understand something even more significant to us.

Bill Yakely is a member of the PNC who has been tabbed by chair Gary Carlsen to serve as our "spiritual guidepost" and he begins each of our bi-weekly meetings with a short devotion and prayer time. Last week,  Bill shared a prayer, inspired by Thomas Merton, that he wrote several years ago: "Let me abandon my way, Lord, seeking the course you have set before me through your still and quiet voice. You move in mysteriuous ways with a kind and gentle way. Lord, in my wandering circles, help me to come to you each and every day....Lord, thank you for your direction, answer to prayer, glimpses of your kingdom, direction and path and the peace that transcends all my mortal ambiguous flailing about in the ashes of life."

If there is one thing we are about collectively as a PNC, it is prayer. We are committed to the concept that as we are prayerful, lifting up our church, our journey, and the leader for our church that God has already chosen, we will be given direction.

While we are hopeful, there are no guarantees that our recent progress is anything more than an incremental step in the right general direction, and believe us, we are every bit as anxious to be making progress on this search as you are. But our God is a God of long journeys, stories that are still being written, and plans that conform to a much larger set of needs than our own.

We covet your prayer and thank you for your continued patience and participation on this journey.

10 Skills

As part of the process of creating the Church Information Form (CIF), the PCUSA's primary document to be shared on our behalf with potential candidates, we were provided with a list of more than 60 potential skills that our new teaching elder/head of staff might possess. Then we were asked to select no more than 10. It is at this point that many of us on the PNC were checking off 20, 30, even 40 or more...and were forced to acknowledge that the only person who could conceivably possess all of these skills was celebrated a few days ago on Easter Sunday.

"Preaching" was one skill that we pretty quickly agreed on, but the rest of the process, a conversation that helped us eventually arrive at 10 (at least for now), was a rich one and really helped the PNC arrive at a better understanding of how we are approaching this discernment process as individuals, and how we can come to consensus as a committee.

This is all part of sharing the news that the CIF does now exist in a draft form, and while it still has quite a lot of revision ahead before it can be sent to session, approved by session, sent to the Presbytery Committee on Ministry and approved by them so that it can be shared with potential candidates, we have reached one more milestone on WCPC's journey of discovery.

Thanks for your continued prayers.

An important invitation from the PNC

We are now several months into the search process for our new Teaching Elder/Head of Staff and one of the primary tasks of the PNC is to write the Church Information Form (CIF), which describes who we are and what we believe God is calling us to be as a church. Pastoral candidates will be reviewing this CIF to help discern if WCPC is God’s call for them. In order to assist us with this process, we are inviting you to prayerfully consider who we are as a church and respond to the following questions:

1. Why did you initially choose Whitworth Community Presbyterian Church?

2. Why have you stayed at Whitworth Community Presbyterian Church?
 

3. What is one thing you would want potential pastoral candidates to know about Whitworth Community Presbyterian Church?

We would appreciate your answers to these questions, as well as any additional information you would like us to know, by April 15th. You can share your answers with us in the following ways:

• in the PNC mailbox near Tiffany Hall
• in a sealed envelope delivered to the front office and clearly marked "PNC"
• via email to whitprespnc12@googlegroups.com
• directly to a PNC member

If you would like to have a member of the PNC talk with you individually or meet with your group to discuss these questions please contact PNC Chair Gary Carlsen or email whitprespnc12@googlegroups.com. As always, you can keep abreast of the latest communication from the PNC via The Chimes or the PNC blog at www.whitprespnc.blogspot.com. Thanks for your continued prayers for this most important process.

A statement from Session

The Session wants everyone to know the following things about Whitworth Community Presbyterian Church and its congregation:

• We love Jesus and we want to know and love Him more. We do not all agree on everything, but we do agree that we love Jesus.
• We love the Bible. We deeply want to hear and understand God's Word. We do not all agree on everything, but we do agree that we love God's Word.
• We love each other. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that we love each other.
• We love being involved in the kingdom work of our Savior.

Introduction: Let us prepare

As God has called Whitworth Community Presbyterian Church to a specific work here in Spokane, in the Inland Northwest, and in the world, now is the time for us to prepare: for our new Teaching Elder/Head of Staff (Senior Pastor), and for the new avenues of ministry and growth God has for our church. In faithfulness to Jesus Christ, let us move into this next season of our life together with strength and purpose. Here are three ways that everyone in the Whitworth Community Presbyterian Church family can engage in this work of preparation:

• PRAY: by committing to regular, faithful prayer for our church and the Pastor Nominating Committee.
• GIVE: by helping our church to be healthy, strong, and ready for our next Teaching Elder/Head of Staff by offering our time, talents, and finances generously and regularly.
• INVITE: by extending the embrace of God to one another by offering hospitality, service, and witness to our neighbors, families, and friends.