Ministerial Search January Update
Reaching for the stars
Things are moving fast in the ministerial search. By the time you read this, we will have scheduled four candidates for in-person interviews in January and February. But as this Bulletin goes to press, that level of certainty seems very far off, and December so far has given us barely a chance to catch our breath.
We narrowed our first group of interested candidates down to the smaller number we exchanged packets with and a still smaller number we interviewed by phone. For several crazy days, we did back-to-back interviews — and reviewed new ministerial profiles as they were revealed to us. We also called the references for the ministers we interviewed, and asked those folks to recommend still more references we could talk to. We asked some tough questions, and the ministers we interviewed asked us some tough questions, too.
We are, as always, working towards Monday, March 15. That is the first day we can invite a candidate to come and meet you, and we want to be ready to make an offer that cannot be refused. That means scheduling the first of our pre-candidate weekends by Christmas. So we have been meeting several times a week, interviewing and discussing and envisioning how each person we interview might fit into our TJMC community. It can be overwhelming at times, but it is exciting work and we have met some really wonderful people who bring many strengths to their ministry.
January and February will focus on the pre-candidating weekends. We will bring a select few people to Charlottesville, show them around, spend a whole day in interviews, and hear them preach at a church out of town. We will do more reference checking, talking with people who work with our candidates in their current settlements. All in preparation for Monday, March 15. Once that is done, we have penciled in Christmas.
