Ministry Discernment Committee

Summer:  Lazy evenings!  Free time!  Relaxation!

Not for your Discernment Committee.  Since Memorial Day, we have met regularly, often twice a week, to take advantage of light summer schedules and finish the work before us.  We have accomplished much.  Our Parish Profile is near completion:  text written, quotes and photographs being gathered, all to be assembled this month.  On September 12th, Bishop Knudsen, Canon Studdiford, and our Committee Advisor, the Rev. Mary Ann Taylor, will join with the Vestry and Discernment Committee to approve the profile and move us into the next stage of our search:  taking applications, screening candidates, and conducting interviews. 

Once applications arrive, our committee will observe a new, higher level of confidentiality.  While we want to keep the parish informed, we will owe an obligation to our applicants not to reveal their identities or discuss their standing in the search.  This can be awkward; some of us know applicants personally, and will have questions:  did his application arrive?  Will she be offered an interview?  How was his sermon?  The answer to each will have to be, “We can’t say.”  Hard feelings and a loss of trust in home parishes may otherwise result.   

Our work has extended beyond assembly of the Parish Profile.  In purposeful, sincere, and respectful discussion we have explored some of our deepest convictions, hopes, and fears.  This has not been easy.  We have not agreed on every issue.  But we did not try to agree.  We tried to understand one another, understand not only the surface expression of divergent Christian convictions but the deep integrity of those convictions and of the people who hold them.

We make no great claim for this work.  It has been the modest effort of a small group.  That modest effort will bear fruit, though, when we engage with candidates and find a rector to lead us into a renewed life of faith at St. John’s Church.

Please continue to talk with us.  Suggest candidates.  Ask questions.  Tell us what you want, what you hope for, what you fear, what you see in our future.  We will continue working for you until our work is complete. -Bruce Mallonee, MDC chair