Posted on 08/14/2006 9:19:55 PM PDT by Huber
The Church of the Good Shepherd, Davidson, NC
Review of the Senior Pastor Hiring Process
The vestry has put together a 3-phase process for finding a senior pastor:
Ø Identification
Ø Screening
Ø Weekend Visit
First Phase: Identification
During this phase, names of potentially suitable candidates are submitted to the vestry. Currently, 8 names have been submitted. Names of candidates can be submitted by anyone in the congregation. If the members of the vestry believe that the person would be a suitable candidate, they move on to the second phase.
Second Phase: Screening
During this phase, the vestry first determines whether the candidate is interested in the position. If so, they send a brief welcoming letter including a thumbnail description of COTGS and a reference to our Web site. They request the following:
Ø a current resume
Ø tapes or copies of recent sermons
Ø a written account of his personal testimony
Ø information about his family
Ø a description of what he thinks his pastoral gifts are
Depending on the quality of what they receive, the vestry, in turn, does the following:
Ø visits his church, if feasible, to hear him preach
Ø gets personal references from the people who know him
Ø interviews him either in person or by telephone
Once they decide on the best of the available candidates, they will invite him for a weekend visit (Friday evening through Sunday afternoon).
Third Phase: Weekend Visit
The purpose of the weekend visit is to expose the candidate to a wide variety of church functions, groups, and people. A host would be designated to coordinate scheduling, transportation, and accommodations. Activities for the weekend would include each of the following:
Ø Time for each vestry member to spend with the candidate one-on-one
Ø A tour of the area (probably Saturday morning)
Ø Meetings with church groups (for example, strategic planning, staff, community groups, worship team, etc.)
Ø A church-wide social function on Saturday evening
The candidate would lead the Sunday morning worship service and possibly the Saturday evening prayer service. An extended interview with the vestry on Sunday afternoon would wrap up the weekend. Probable topics to be addressed include:
Ø Where are you on the broad spectrum of Anglican styles of worship?
Ø Describe your picture of a healthy church.
Ø What does pastoral care look like in your congregation?
Ø As a pastor, what does your typical week consist of?
Ø In the spectrum of innovator vs. controller or builder vs. caretaker, where are you?
There would also be a time for the candidate to ask the vestry questions.
If at any time during this phase of the process the vestry by majority vote feels that the candidate should be removed from further consideration, he would be notified and the process would start over with another candidate.
Website: www.tcotgs.org
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Best wishes for a successful search!
We were high as a cat's back when we were Episcopalian, so we wound up on the opposite side of the Tiber.
My daughter starts Davidson in 2 days . . . there is a Catholic parish right down the road in Huntersville. Know anything about it?
This search process would never pass muster in my Diocese (Chicago). For one thing, all the pronouns in this document presume that their candidates will be male. We'd be required to reword it in "inclusive" language.
Good luck. Since this is an Anglican mission, your ordinary isn't Curry, is it? Here's hoping for a successful search. Maybe y'all can snag a Trinity School grad.
St. Mark's has a very active youth program, tending toward the contemporary. My oldest went to a Steubenville Youth conference in Atlanta with them last month. Nice folks, solid theology.
I've never been to Mass there, so I can't comment on their liturgy.
So there's hope.
My daughter is "contemporary"! And our parish (St. Luke's, Mint Hill) is Redneck Evangelical Modern. But it's where we live, anyway :-).
We live on the far side of the Urban Sprawl from Davidson, but if your daughter would ever be interested in a dinner with the Family Circus, especially if she can't make it home on a special occasion, just let us know.
It's very funny to hear Charlotte referred to as "urban sprawl" - as an Atlantan. Y'all don't know from sprawl! < g >
Although it was obvious to me that the city's growing like mad -- drove right under the new perimeter highway exchange on 77 North . . . dog trainer up in Terrell said that the only problem with Davidson is its proximity to Charlotte . . .
Charlotte has Sprawl compared to Tulsa :-).
I've been meaning to go up to Davidson College; the Morrison family graves are there. We've also been discussing a nighttime trip to Hopewell Presbyterian, where the eponymous Davidson (Rev. War general) is supposed to be active.
I've attended St Mark's once for a 1st communion service. As Anglo-Catholics, we have given it serious consideration as an alternative to the reformed AMiA, but it was unclear whether the clergy were in the Pope's camp or more aligned with some of the revisionist American bishops, and there also appeared to be little emphasis on the liturgy. I will visit some morning for early Mass and let you know if I get a different impression.
Nope, out of ++Curry's jurisdiction. Do you think that there are any Trinity grads who have not beed indoctrinated into the moral relativism camp?
Well, since a lot of them are spurned by TEC, they probably have kept their orthodoxy. After all, going to Trinity is in itself an act of swimming against the revisionist tide. They understand that their "hirability" is pretty close to nil. But they go anyway because they believe in the classical faith. BTW, I was involved in a few searches where any resumes of graduates of Trinity were immediately thrown into the wastebasket.
Was this before the new Bishop took over? It seems to me that pastors who got a little astray with Bishop Curlin's being somewhat out of touch are being nudged into line in the new regime.
It could have been.
Wow. Your process is so very different from ours (per our APCK canon law). I will post this on the Trad-Anglican page -- can you keep me apprised of how things are progressing?
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