September Leadership Transition Team Report
-Bill Rusher
As I reported last month, the August focus groups, questionnaires and the September evaluations of the answers were only the first steps of an ongoing process of evaluating and finalizing the church profile. The Leadership Transition Team met last on Thursday September 22, 2022 and a list of 6 Pastoral Bullet Points were suggested and adopted by the team as a working document of some of the qualities we are seeking from a Pastor or Pastors. The 6 Points are:
- Pulpit Qualifications-strong preaching, interpretation and application of biblical truth
- Social Qualifications-a sincere love of people, good people and listening skills, an ability to calmly interact with those who challenge them, and the desire and ability to work with people of all ages.
- Community Qualifications-experience with non profit groups, enjoys working with other pastors, welcomes the unlovely and the rejected members of society, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Worship and Music Qualifications-creative design of meaningful worship services, with appreciation of music both traditional and contemporary and be encouraging to FCC musicians.
- Administrative Qualifications – demonstrated ability to skillfully direct and encourage the various committees of the church, lead and encourage the church as a whole, and have the knowledge or demonstrated ability to effectively conduct church business practices.
- Visitation Qualifications- enjoys visiting, taking communion to, and calling on members who can’t attend services in person.
Candidates/Candidate must pass a background check.
I think this is a faithful summary of the data you gave us in the focus groups and questionnaires that applies to our search for pastoral leadership. Now the team has to compete a profile for FCC of Greeley. But when we looked at the profiles of several other churches in our region, there are now 8 pastoral openings and a pool without 8 prospective candidates! We saw the same dry cumbersome bureaucratic template with little to distinguish between one church or the other except a different picture of the church in front with the different community statistics that you’d expect in comparing Ft. Morgan vrs South Suburban for example. So instead, we are developing an electronic profile that fits our new world of Facebook, and Zoom meetings. It will be a video that will still need your approval and approval of the regional leadership, but instead of lists, and redundant catch words, it can be a walk around of our beautiful building and grounds with interviews of congregation members and staff, to portray a unique and personal image. The necessary statistics and other information would still be a part of the video but listed separately under click on tabs for access.
We want to reassure you that any other ideas that we haven’t addressed yet will not be forgotten for they are part of our collective memory to be considered for action as we go forward from here.
Remember the members of the Leadership and Transition Team are Debbie Berg–board vice chair, Mike McGuire–staff relations, Verna Recor–recorder, Carla Ikenouye–missions, Jodi Hartmann–elders, Alicia Loschen–diaconate and youth, Taylor Rainbolt our new millennial member, and myself, Bill Rusher–board chair. Staff as adjunct nonvoting members are Mark Pumphrey, Judi Ring, and Sue Tjardes. We asked for your initial input and participation and we ask for your continued participation now, so feel free to call on anyone of us to clarify anything we’ve said today. And remember if you want to help, we welcome you, we can never afford to turn volunteers away.