WRITING GROUP

A Reflection on the Work

Of the Associate Pastor

Nominating Committee

By Nora Thapa

Prayer and discernment. Listening for God's call. Asking God for guidance and direction so we can understand where he wants our Church to go. Seeking God's truth to lead us to the person who is right for us.

That was our job description -- that was our call. Margie Ralston told me that when she phoned me to invite me to serve on this committee. Carol Barrett told me that, too, when I sat with her over coffee a few days later, after I had called her in a perplexed and teary panic wondering why I had been nominated for this “APNC.” Bob Porter, our liaison to the presbytery's Committee on Ministry, told us this as well -- yes, there would be a lot of paperwork, reading and writing and discussion time, he said, but that our biggest commitment would be to prayer.

Prayer?

Our biggest commitment would be prayer? In the face of all the work we had in front of us, how could it be that our biggest commitment should be to prayer? We had a mission study to compile; interviews with the staff and session members to conduct; a congregational survey to write, post, compile and evaluate; and we needed to design, print and send a post card to every member of the congregation letting them know that there was such a survey.

We had a “Mid Morning Matters” to host; bulletin announcements to submit; “Minutes for the APNC” to give; Octagon articles to write; a Festival of Ministries presentation to prepare; reports to session to give; a congregational open forum to host.

Then there was a list of required and desired skills to figure out; five narratives to write, edit and finalize; a Church Information Form (CIF) (Part I and Part II!) to discuss, draft, edit, revise (seven times, I might add) and when done, present to the session and the congregation to receive and approve. Once the CIF was approved, we needed to input the CIF data online, post it and draft letters to respond to potential candidates who were drawn to it.

We needed to come up with a budget. We needed to write and submit classified ads for publication. We needed to download Personal Information Forms (PIFs) from the Church Leadership Connection (CLC) matching site and those sent to us via e-mail and then numerically evaluate every one of them based on the criteria that we had established previously.

We needed to send follow-up letters, rejection letters and requests for further information. We needed to contact candidates, arrange for interviews, interview them, debrief with each other and write thank you letters. We needed to make timelines, flowcharts, minutes of every meeting and create, maintain and update a database of all the PIFs we received. We needed to make snacks and coffee and lock up our papers and files and keep everything confidential.

So … with all the work we had to do, I just did not know what it meant that our biggest commitment would be to prayer. And what, I wondered, were we to pray for? Pray that God would send us the right person? Well, OK…easy enough. I figured I could certainly commit to that: “God, send us the right person!” I prayed.

But, when all of the members of the APNC offered prayers at our meetings, that is not what I heard them pray for. They prayed for God's guidance in the APNC's search. For an openness to understanding God's will for our church. For a renewed faith in the Spirit to lead us where God wanted us to be. For direction to take us to where God wanted us to go. “Keep us open to your will, God,” they asked. “Keep us mindful of the Spirit. Let us listen and understand what you want us to know. Give us faith in our discussions and deliberations that we are seeking and discerning your will. Grant us patience and wisdom in our search. Let us be moved by the Spirit.”

APNC members did not say, “God, We're waiting.  Send us the right one,” but rather, “God, keep us open to your will for our church.”

And then, 14 months after we began our prayers and our work, APNC chair Polly Harris wrote to tell us that Jessica Tate had accepted our call.

Among our e-mails to each other expressing elation and glee about this wonderful news, there was one simple note from Pastor Henry Brinton:

“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!”

For a moment, I was taken aback. What did Henry mean? What did that phrase mean? Was Henry implying that it was just God, and only God who sent us Jessica? Did God have Jessica ready for us all along? Was then my assumption at the beginning correct -- that our commitment to prayer meant that we were to simply cry out “God, send us the right one!” … and He would do just that?

So, did that mean that all those meetings and tasks and paperwork were not really necessary or important, because all we really had to do is pray for Jessica to walk through our door?

But, then I thought of the members of our committee and the prayers they lifted up to God in our meetings, and I realized that I didn't think that's what Henry meant at all. Perhaps he meant this: Praise God -- Praise Him for the blessings of perseverance and humor through all the paperwork we had to finish, the multiple drafts we had to write, the more than 50 meetings we had to attend. Praise Him for the Holy Spirit that was at work within us in our committee, that kept us collegial, respectful and kind to one another other, even when we were feeling a bit deflated and frustrated when it seemed like no one would qualify for the position.

Praise God for the inner calm that we sensed throughout our work because we understood, though our prayers, that it was for a divine purpose and for the good of our church. Praise God for the blessings of openness and faith, given to us when we agreed to extend the invitation for an interview with Jessica, even though we wondered if she was too young and not experienced enough to handle the demands of our church.  Praise God for giving us that giddy affirmation we felt, in the context of the knowledge we had gained from our year-long study of our congregation and the thoroughness by which we conducted our process, that when we first sat down with Jessica, we knew she was the one.

Praise God for the blessing of faith, which caused me, normally a timid driver on dark highways at night, to phone APNC member Esther Elstun from the road, after we had interviewed Jessica, telling her “Esther, I am just so excited I don't think I can make it home!” -- to which she replied “And I am so excited that I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight!”

Praise God for the blessing of Henry's faith in us, that when many of us clandestinely whispered to him that we felt we had found our Associate Pastor, he told us not to wait. Praise God for the blessing of Henry's wisdom, sensitivity and confidence to both inspire Jessica about the possibilities of ministry at FPC and alleviate her concerns, just by being the humble and compassionate person he is and the gifted pastor whom we love.

Praise God for the blessings of Jessica's gifts, intelligence and warmth, whose own diligence, spiritual sense of call, and prayerful discernment led her to us. And Praise God for the Spirit, as APNC member Scott Zimmerman said, that worked through us to unify all of us -- the diverse individuals of our committee, and then Henry, and finally Jessica, to coalesce around the joyful potential of the match between Fairfax Presbyterian Church and our new Associate Pastor.

So, maybe that's what Henry meant. God didn't just send Jessica to us in response to a request that He send us the right one. Our work was deliberate, moral, fair and thorough, yes. But our process was guided from the beginning by an acknowledgement of God's blessings, which we found through our prayers. The prayers that Bob told us we would need to commit to, that Margie and Carol told me would take the most time. Now, as I reflect on our original job description -- prayer and discernment, listening for God's call, asking God for guidance and direction so we can understand where he wants our Church to go, seeking God's truth to lead us to the person who is right for us -- I'd say we have done it well.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” Let us do just that.

Please join our writing group by contacting Nora Thapa through the Member Connections Ministry at memberconnectionsministry@fairfaxpresby.com