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Rector Search
Discernment & Search Updates
February 28 Meeting
The D&S Team met on Sunday, February 28 and chose five candidates we would like to know more about. Sub-teams of three will visit the home parishes of these rector candidates during the month of March. We will listen to them preach, have dinner with them and their family, meet parishioners, talk with references, and observe these priests “in action.” Team members were also tasked to phone and write those applicants who are no longer being considered for our rector position.
February 21, 2010 Meeting
The D&S Team reviewed Phone Conversations with our candidates and decided on those whom we want to learn more about. We chose several candidates we would like to visit in their home parish. Team members were assigned to contact those candidates and set dates for visits in March. Team members were also tasked with writing to candidates whom we no longer wish to consider.
At our next meeting on February 28, we will finalize visiting teams and decide on questions to be asked during site visits. We will also assign team members to begin reference checks on our candidates.
February 2010
The D & S Team is having Phone Conversations with our candidates during the first three weeks in February. We are excited to be reading their résumés and essays and talking with them by phone.
January 31, 2010 Meeting
The Discernment & Search Team met for more than three hours on Sunday, January 31. We have divided into five sub-teams of three people who will have phone conversations with our ten candidates. The phone teams selected times they are available; the leader of each team will contact the candidate to schedule the conversation. All conversations will take place in the next three weeks. The rest of the meeting was devoted to reviewing the candidates’ résumés and essays and sharing our impressions of their written materials.
January 24, 2010 Meeting
A long-awaited day finally arrived! The D&S Team has patiently waited to receive the names and résumés of the candidates applying for the position of 10th rector of Trinity Memorial. The diocesan deadline for applying for our position was December 1. The diocesan office is short staffed. Holidays intervened. We were hoping to have materials in early January, but that was not possible. The bishop needed to read résumés and check that all applicants were in good standing in their diocese before sending names and materials to us.
On Thursday, January 21 the package of applications arrived. “Is it a heavy package? How many names?” Those questions were answered at our meeting on Sunday, January 24.
There are TEN applications! That is a good number! At a very fast, first glance it looks like we have some excellent applicants. The applicants come from all over the country, as well as from our own diocese. There are male and female candidates. They include a wide range in age. They come with vast and varied experiences. The Team is excited and eager to learn more about all of them.
The Team’s first task is to contact the applicants and let them know that WE have just received their applications, we thank them for their interest in our position, and we are now prayerfully reading their materials. Virginia Chatterton and Carolyn Albaugh will be our letter writers. And they, along with Barbara Manzo, D&S Team chair, will be the contact persons if our applicants have questions.
Bishop Adams has recommended that we speak with every candidate on the telephone. We have divided our D&S Team into five phone conversations teams who will probably each contact two candidates. We will have speaker phones set up, and the rest of the Team will be able to sit in on the conversations.
We have prepared a list of questions that we will cover in the phone conversations. The phone teams will meet and divide up the questions. We have evaluation sheets so we can record our thoughts as we talk with prospective rectors. We expect to make the initial phone calls the first week in February.
The process, of course, is to discern who will be the best person to be our next rector. So after our phone conversations, we will determine who we want to know better. Three D&S Teams members will visit the semi-finalists in their parish. We expect that one member of the phone team will be with two other Team members to make the parish visit. We anticipate parish visits in March.
The finalists will be invited to Trinity Memorial to meet us and experience our parish and community first hand. We expect those visits post-Easter. We will keep you well informed of our progress in the coming weeks.
Please continue to keep the discernment and search process, and the Team members in your prayers.
November 15 Meeting
On November 15, the Team met at the rectory. Paul wanted the Team to be familiar with the rectory, in case candidates have questions about housing.
See Photos of the Rectory and our meeting there.
Jim Albert, church treasurer, and Joan Lacey, financial secretary met with the Team and outlined budget procedures for the search. A sub-committee of the Team will prepare a proposed budget to be presented to the Finance Commission and Vestry.
Paul Donecker discussed the Personal Profile that a priest completes and files with the national Church Deployment Office. A priest ranks his or her ministry specialties and supporting skills and experiencesand also completes a self-assessment leadership description. We appreciated Paul’s sharing his Personal Profile and self assessments with our Team.
Our meeting focused on familiarity with our web site. All the information we can think of that a candidate might want to know about us is posted on our web site. Team members need to know where to find information, if asked. Marcy Keeler led an overview of navigating the site.
We concluded our meeting with a discussion of the strengths and challenges that we see at Trinity and what a rector candidate would want to know about us.
November 8, 2009 Meeting
The D&S Team is preparing for our first telephone conversations with candidates. On November 8, the Team met with the Rev. Christine Day and held a mock phone conversation. Bill Palmer, Debbie Parmelee, and Virginia Chatterton were the Team members speaking with Chris on a speaker phone hookup as she played the role of the candidate. We all learned a number of helpful things during that process and we are grateful for Chris’ help!
October 18, 2009 Meeting
The Discernment & Search Team met on Sunday, October 18. We invited parishioners who had served on past rector search committees at Trinity—or at other parishes—to meet with us and share the wisdom of their experiences. Able to join us this week were Patty Bloomer, a member of the search team for the eighth and ninth rectors of Trinity in 1976 and 1995, and John Lynn, a member of Vestry in 1995. John Chaffee, a member of the present D&S Team, was on Vestry during the last rector search. The Team appreciated the candid sharing of their experiences, as memory permitted. Our Team was commended by them for our organization, communication, and the goals we have set.
Chair Barbara Manzo distributed the list of 10 essay questions the diocese requests candidates answer and submit with their résumés. Those essays will be forwarded to us along with the essays we have requested.
The D&S Team voted unanimously to send a letter to Bishop Skip Adams; his assistant, Canon Karen Lewis; and the diocesan deployment officer, Judy Fried, reiterating our desire to receive names and résumés of all rector candidates who are ordained priests, in good standing in their diocese, and do not have a criminal record. Those are the criteria the bishop said he would check when he met with the Team on his episcopal visit to Trinity in April. The Discernment & Search Team of Trinity Memorial wants to decide on all other criteria for our rector.
The next meeting of the D&S Team will be on Sunday, November 8. We will have a mock phone conversation with The Rev. Christine Day playing the role of the rector candidate. Virginia Chatterton, Bill Palmer and Debra Parmelee will practice asking the questions the Team has designed for our initial phone contacts.
October 4, 2009 Meeting
The D&S Team met on Sunday, October 4. Chair Barbara Manzo announced that the profile of the parish for the deployment process is complete. Our position is listed in the (national Episcopal) Church Deployment Office Positions Open Bulletin. It is also listed on the Diocese of Central New York web site and it appears in the Transitional Ministry Newsletter.
A sub-team of Masha Britten, John Chaffee, Virginia Chatterton, Paul Donecker, and Tom Harding has been working on questions for our telephone conversations with candidates.
Masha Britten presented a worksheet for evaluating the candidates’ essays and discussion ensued on that process.
A timeline and future meeting dates were discussed. At our next meeting on October 18, we will invite parishioners who have served on search committees here or in other parishes to share their experiences with us.
We will meet on November 8 and have a practice phone conversation. The Rev. Chris Day, guest preacher and celebrant at Trinity that morning, has agreed to be our practice candidate. Virginia Chatterton, Bill Palmer and Debbie Parmelee will be the staged conversationalists.
Paul Donecker has invited the D&S Team to meet on November 15 at the rectory and “take a tour” so all team members will have knowledge of that property.
Future dates include:
December 1: deadline for submitting names. The diocese will vet candidates and submit names and résumés to us by January 3. In January, the Team will review candidate materials and finalize a list of those whom we want to know more about in phone conversations.
February 1-20 will be phone conversations. We have tentatively planned for sub-teams to visit candidates’ home parishes in early March. Late March will be meetings to finalize a list of candidates to visit Trinity. We anticipate having final candidates and their families visit Binghamton on four weekends following Easter.
The Team hopes to discuss and discern the finalist in late May meetings. One candidate will be recommended to Vestry on June 14 as the D&S Team’s choice to be our tenth rector.
September 20, 2009 Meeting
The D& S Team met on Sunday, September 20. A sub-team of Masha Britten, John Chaffee, Virginia Chatterton, Paul Donecker, and Tom Harding presented questions for discussion that will be asked of candidates.
Candidates will be asked to submit written essays with their application materials:
- Tell us about your spiritual life and practice, how it has changed and developed over the years, and how it affects your ministry.
- What constitutes successful leadership in ministry? Describe your approach and give some examples that illustrate it.
- What are the most important aspects of parish ministry for you, the parts of parish life you spend more time on, enjoy the most?
- What would you like to share with us which will help give us a clearer picture of who you are?
The Team next considered how we will evaluate these essays. A rating form was suggested where team members can comment on what we like about the candidate’s answers, what bothers us, and how the answers relate to our parish goals.
The Team then spent considerable time with a draft of questions that would be asked in first conversations with candidates on the phone. We envision hour and a half conversations. We narrowed our list to 10 questions. We would ask some introductory questions, want to know about their theological perspective; liturgical style; role as an administrator, educator, and pastor; and experiences in outreach ministry and encouraging congregational growth.
We set a deadline of December 1 for candidates to apply for our rector position. Interested priests must contact Judy Fried, Diocesan Deployment Officer in the Diocese of Central New York.
Judy Fried will be attending the national gathering of diocesan deployment officers and she will have our brochure available. See Rector Search Brochure.
If you know a priest who might be interested in our position, you can request a brochure from our church office. All candidates must contact Judy Fried in the diocesan office.
Our position is listed in the (national Episcopal) Church Deployment Office Positions Open Bulletin. It is also listed on the Diocese of Central New York web site and it appears in the Transitional Ministry Newsletter.
August 30, 2009 Meeting
The Discernment & Search Team met on Sunday, August 30. Our agenda included finalizing information to be sent to the diocese; reviewing the History Remembered responses; and beginning work on deciding questions to be asked of rector candidates.
A Parish Search Request form must be submitted to our Diocesan Deployment Officer, Judy Fried. She in turn submits this information to the national Church Deployment Office. We are a program style parish, in an urban setting, seeking a full-time priest to be our rector. We have 215 communicants; average Sunday attendance of 113; and two Sunday services. We have 124 pledging units, pledging $177,139. Our total budget is $392,791 and we have no debt.
A succinct description of our parish:
- An historic, small-city downtown church valuing excellence in traditional worship and music;
- a Jubilee Ministry Center committed to outreach
- Theologically progressive with a healthy tolerance for differing opinions
- A diverse and welcoming community dedicated to living a thoughtful Christian faith relevant to the challenges of today,
The goals of the parish:
- Continue excellence in worship, music and preaching
- Attract new members
- Strengthen Christian formation for all ages
- Expand community outreach
The form requires that we list the responsibilities of the rector and related skills, using codes from the national church’s Ministry Skill/Experience Manual.
Detailed information about our parish—Our Parish Profile—is found on our web site. A brochure has been prepared that can be given to potential candidates. It briefly describes our parish and community; how we see ourselves; our goals; and the qualities we seek in a rector.
Judy Fried will be attending the national gathering of diocesan deployment officers later this month and she will have our brochure available. It can be downloaded from our web site:
See Rector Search Brochure.
If you know a priest who might be interested in our position, you can request a brochure from our church office. All candidates must contact Judy Fried in the diocesan office.
History Remembered
Tom & Susanne Harding have compiled the comments and answers to the questions from our History Remembered events. These comments help us—and a future rector—learn about our past and remember what has been important. What was your first visit to Trinity like? Who was the most interesting person you ever knew at Trinity? What is your favorite memory of Trinity? Of holidays, of our buildings, of music and worship, etc.? The answers can also be found on our web site:
See
History Remembered.
Questions for conversations
We had a general discussion of questions we want to be sure to ask in our various conversations with candidates. We went around the room and each team member shared his or her three top priorities of what we want to learn about our candidates. We will probably have initial conversations by telephone. A small team will meet the candidate in his or her present setting. And finally, a short list of probably three candidates will visit Trinity Memorial.
The D&S Team has been reading The Alban Handbook for Clergy Transitions: Beginning Ministry Together. It contains numerous helpful suggestions about conversations with candidates. Debbie Parmelee shared a synopsis of the chapter on “Talking with Candidates.”
Paul Donecker shared information from the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania. One was a list of sample questions and the task is to analyze their appropriateness. Paul also shared a sample D&S Team Visit Schedule in a candidate’s church and a sample Local Visit Schedule when a candidate comes to Binghamton.
The sub-team—Masha Britten, John Chaffee, Virginia Chatterton, and Tom Harding—working on questions for our conversations will be meeting this month. The next Team meeting will be Sunday, September 20.
Last updated 3/3/10