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.