1801 Park Court Place,
Bldg. C
Santa Ana, CA
92701-5010
Phone: 714-692-2791
Fax: 714-692-9317
E-mail: Office@pacificasynod.org
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MOBILITY
101 What’s It All About? BY THE REV. KAREN PARKER Part 12 | ||||||
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Late
Breaking News... | ||||||
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Our mobility team has been listening to you and pondering with each other possibilities for improvements in the call process. Our discussions have led us to make two major changes in the way we will be presenting names of candidates to congregations. The first change is that congregational mission profiles will now be sent to possible candidates by the synod staff rather than by the congregation. Our current practice is that we call and read most of the profile to prospective candidates, and on the basis of what they hear and the notes they take, they spend time of reflection, family conversation and prayer, then let us know whether or not they want to be considered in that particular congregation. When we formally present their name as a candidate, the congregation then sends the profile to the candidates along with other congregational and community information. The change will be that following our initial phone call to prospective candidates we will mail the mission profile to them so that they will have it in front of them as they reflect, converse and pray with family, and can make a more informed decision about wishing to be considered by a congregation or not. On the basis of their discernment and decision we will or will not provide their name to the congregation. This is the process followed in many other synods, and we have experienced and appreciated this approach in various call processes in our own ministries. Since we’re not certain why or how our practice originated, we’ve decided to change this piece of the process in Pacifica. The second change is that we may bring the names of a candidate to more than one of our Pacifica congregations at the same time. We would always inform call committees that this was the case. This is very different from our current practice of having a candidate’s name in only one Pacifica congregation at a time. We have used as our rationale for our current practice that we didn’t want to have our congregations “in competition” with each other within the synod. We have permitted candidates from Pacifica and other synods to be simultaneously involved in call processes in other synods as well the one process in this synod, and we have always informed call committees of this reality when we knew that information. Pastors in the process have made a case that our system gives a distinct advantage to congregations, who have the benefit of receiving several names, and penalizes pastors as candidates in Pacifica since they can only be in one call process within our synod at a time. We also realize that we may be hurting our own synod and our synod’s pastors by not giving them opportunity for simultaneous consideration in several of the available congregations within our synod, especially when timing issues are a reality. This is particularly true now that we have so many vacancies within Pacifica. It will always be our practice to inform call committees when a pastor’s name is in more than one call process. It will also be imperative that when a pastor becomes a candidate of choice in a congregation, he or she will need to decide whether or not to continue in that process and if so, to withdraw immediately from any other call process. We hope these changes in practice are helpful and will serve to bring about good matches between pastors and congregations throughout Pacifica and the whole church. | ||||||
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MORE
MOBILITY 101- Part 1: "Is
that the Spirit's Nudging I Feel?"
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