Don't thank us...

Just a quick thought today about the impact serving on the PNC can have on the participants. The 12 of us doing this have received support from so many of you...words of encouragement, cards, homemade desserts...which are so greatly appreciated. But there is a larger group of folks that is really feeling the strain of the many hours the PNC is working each week--our families.

We all have spouses who are holding down the fort in unexpected ways...I am not sure any of them understood what they were signing up for when their significant others agreed to serve, for 14 months and counting.

Even more significantly, four of us have children at home. It is one thing to know the joy of coming home after a long day to be greeted by kids, but the excitement dissipates quickly when my three-year-old almost always immediately asks, "Daddy, do you have a meeting tonight?" Too often these past few months I find myself answering in the affirmative.

So, keep praying. God is working in our midst and we feel uplifted and know we are making good progress in this discernment process. But pray for our families, too. And if you run into one of our spouses at church, please say "Thanks," because they don't usually get to share the homemade desserts.

Report at the Annual Meeting

A more extensive version of the following information was presented by members of the PNC at the WCPC Annual Meeting on February 10, 2013.

Gregg Larson opened by introducing the PNC (10 of 12 members were present).

“My fellow PNC members and I are glad to be here tonight, not only as your PNC but also as fellow members of Whitworth Community Presbyterian Church.  The reason for our participation during tonight’s annual meeting is to provide relevant and helpful information to all of you regarding our current search for a new Head of Staff/Teaching Elder.  We will be making this presentation as a group with some slides, and there will be time for open questions at the end.”

Gregg started by showing the PNC blog, highlighting the PNC membership list and then Steps to Calling a New Teaching Elder/Head of Staff page.

“The main page not only shows the current blog post but off to the side there are links to additional pages that have information such as a list of who is on the committee and the steps of the process and where we are in the process.”

“The first three steps (Organize, Explore and Create) took us from January to about mid-June.”

“Since mid-June and moving into weekly meetings in August we have been diligently working on the next three steps (Search, Consider, and Select).”

“We will be excited when the day comes that we can follow with the last two steps (Nominate and Celebrate).”

Kara Koerper then went into a little more depth about our process for the past few months.

“Since we were receiving a great quantity of PIFs (we have now received nearly 180) we felt it would be best to divide the work over four small groups, each comprised of three members of the PNC.  Each group was assigned a portion of the collected PIFs to review and rank.  Those applicants that were ranked highly by the small group were then brought to the entire PNC for review and further discernment. As our process of winnowing has proceeded we have made email contact at least once or twice with every applicant and have had phone contact with nine different candidates.”

“Of those nine, we listened to several sermons from each candidate. Some answered written questions, were interviewed by phone and we have had three in-person on-site interviews.  Though we as a PNC are excited for steps seven and eight to be completed, much to our disappointment, for three different reasons, it became clear to us that none of our three candidates was God’s choice for our church.” 

“Yet, despite the frustration we have experienced, we have a renewed sense of hope that God’s timing is prevailing and that His choice for us is on their way.  We can all meditate on Romans 5:3-5 – We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. “

Bill Yakely then added his perspective on where we find ourselves in the process.

“Hebrews 4:3 says ‘His works were finished from the foundation of the world.’”

“Nobody controls his own life or the life of a 12-member PNC.  The author of Hebrews argues that history merely unfolds what God completed before the foundation of the world; to submit your will to His defines what it means to ‘rest.’ Here the ‘rest’ may be redefined in finding a shepherd of the flock or Teaching Elder/Head of Staff, whoever that might be.”

“As was mentioned before, in August we started to receive a significant number of PIFs and we diligently started to meet weekly.  Every PNC is unique in its own path and cannot be compared against another, except in our desire to seek God's will or His ‘rest.’”

“We have a diverse group that adequately represents the diversity of our congregation.  We will be thrilled to come to you with a final candidate.  However, we are not in control.  Isaiah 51:15 says, ‘For I am the Lord your God who churns up the sea so that its waves roar---the Lord Almighty is his name.’”

“Thanks for your continued prayers on behalf of the committee--remembering that the Lord God Almighty will churn up a sea of candidates and the lesson we all need to remember is that we do not control God --Thanks be to God!”

The PNC presentation concluded with a Q&A session moderated by Tad Wisenor, during which a number of questions were asked and additional perspectives shared.

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).