Heard Any Good Rumors Lately?

We have!

There's a lot of information out there! We hear a lot of information being passed around that is not, well, NOT ACCURATE! So, please, if you want to know what is happening, please check on this blog, or email our chair at chairctbishopsearch@gmail.com.

There's a lot of confidential stuff because we need to respect the privacy of people who are applying. But, there is a lot of other stuff you can know too. If you email our chair, we will make sure that as much public information is available on this blog as possible.

Thanks so much for your interest and love of our diocese.

Talking with our Candidates

This week we are finishing up phone interviews with our current list of candidates. The committee divided up into teams of three for this process: One to ask the questions, one to take notes and one to listen and pray. Each candidate was asked the same five questions: How do they take care of themselves, their family and encourage others to take care of themselves; to tell us about an instance where they needed to implement change and an instance that required great pastoral sensitivity, about a situation when they were totally unfamiliar with the cultural norms and finally, about what they like most and least about their current position.

We all met on a “bridge” or conference line that not only allowed us all to listen and hear one another, but also, with our candidate’s permission, to record each conversation. Each conversation began and ended with prayer, and if the interviews that I took part in are any indication, each conversation was thoughtful, enjoyable and not going to make it any easier to discern who we should not go forward with to the next step. Each candidate my team talked to has so many wonderful experiences and talents to offer to our diocese!

The note taker for each team has written up their notes of the interviews and posted them on the committees’ private web-site for us all to review. In addition, committee members can play back and listen to any interview that they want to get more direct information on.

We are meeting again this Saturday, May, 23^rd to prayerfully perform the difficult task of further reducing the number of candidates that we will go forward with.

As always, we ask you all to continue to keep us, and our candidates in your prayers as we go forward.

Four Chalices

It is a bit of a daunting task to carefully read 25 applications (consisting of a resume, six essay questions, a CDO form and three recommendations each) in just seven days. Never-the-less, that is exactly what we members of the Search/Nomination committee did.

We gathered at the Incarnation Center in Ivoryton on Saturday morning. After sharing the Eucharist together in the chapel, we met to come to consensus about which of our candidates we would ask to go forward with us to the next step.

This was NOT an easy task! We have an enormously talented pool of priests of the church offering their gifts to us. But our group worked to carefully to discern the will of God through prayer and intercessions throughout the day. We were faithful in carrying out the spirit of reconciliation and unity expressed by members of the diocese in our surveys and focus groups.

As we reviewed each candidate’s application we were asked to keep the qualities of the bishop listed in our profile in mind and discern for each application: Does this applicant have all the qualities needed in our next Bishop? Is this an applicant that looks promising, but needs further discernment? Is this an applicant that does not quite meet our profile, or is this an applicant that is called elsewhere?

Reading from Acts reminded us what of what we were doing. Just as the apostles did when selecting Judas’s replacement, we cast lots. Each committee member placed slips containing each candidate’s name in one of four chalices, based on our discernment of the candidates’ applications. At the end of this casting of lots, we had a few candidates that we were sure that we wanted to go forward with, and few candidates that we were sure are called elsewhere. And a number of candidates that needed additional prayerful discernment. Each candidate was the subject of our prayer and our careful reflection. We discussed each in detail.

It is amazing how the Holy Spirit can work with our diverse group of individuals that is the Search/Nominating committee! We asked questions about how each candidate would respond to our profile: would they nourish the clergy? Could they articulate a vision for the 21st century? Are they formed by scripture and prayer, having a heart for evangelism, mission and ministry of the youth? Do they appear to be creative problem solvers and reconcilors of division? How would they excite and lead us as one body in Christ?

After closing with evening prayer, we left the Incarnation Center to write thank you notes to the candidates that we will not be going forward with. Each candidate whom we felt that God called elsewhere will receive a personal note of thanks from a committee member. While they may not be called to be our next bishop, they are wonderful priests who love the church and engaged in a faithful call to discernment with us. Phone interviews with our remaining candidates begin this week and go forward into next week.

We want to thank everyone who has been praying for us during this time. Please continue to pray for us over the next six weeks as we continue this process of discernment.

Whew!

Our application email box has been very active this past week. We are really excited to see how many folks have decided to enter into this discernment process with us and we want to thank EVERYONE who worked to meet our extremely tight deadlines.

So who responded? We have 25 candidates….men and women…from all over the country and with many different backgrounds. We have preachers, teachers and community builders. We have folks who speak two and even three languages. Folks with urban experiences. Folks with rural experiences.

Now begins the committee’s most difficult work. We have a week for each us to get to know, through the applications, essay questions and recommendations, each of these 25 candidates. We will be meeting next Saturday, May 9^th, in a retreat setting, to discern, with the help of the Holy Spirit, who should go forward with us to the next step of the nomination process.

Please pray for us and for all our candidates as our mutual discovery process moves forward.