The Profile Committee thanks everyone who completed the survey
we distributed during the last few weeks. We have had a
tremendous response. We have 100 completed surveys.

Next, as part of our discernment of our
parish, we will conduct a group meeting on Sunday, February
26th, from 12:00-2:00 pm in the Fellowship Hall. A light lunch
will be provided by the Profile Committee during the Coffee Hour
following the 10:00 service.
Time will be short and we have much that we wish to accomplish,
so we ask that you begin to think about the following questions:
1. What do we do really well?
2. What can we do better?
3. In a new rector, I want to see…?
4. What will St. Mary’s look like five years from now?
5. Describe a recent moment of success and fulfillment in St.
Mary’s ministry.
6. As a worshipping community, how does St. Mary’s care for
our spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being?
If the Sunday meeting is not an option for you, the same meeting
will be offered on Thursday evening, March 1st, from 7-9 pm. We
encourage you to attend one of these meetings. Your participation
is so important to help us clarify who we are and what we want.
Please direct your questions to one of the Profile Committee
members: Mike Tyler, Kim and Sarah Trumbore, Sheri Hart,
Showey Howey, David McGeen, Bobbi Patton, Doug Shelton,
Nick McKenna, and Susan Suter.

The profile committee has release a parish wide survey on-line and also through the mail. The results of the survey will be used in the narrative portion of the parish profile.

The dates for parish-wide focus groups have been set. The first one is set for February 26th from noon until 2pm with lunch provided. The second will be held on Thursday night, March 1st from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. We will post more information on the format of these meetings in a few weeks.

After a short break for the holidays, the profile committee is back at work. On January 8th the committee met with diocesan consultant Father Roger Derby. Father Derby has helped several other parishes during their time of discernment.

A parish profile has many different parts to it. This is our working table of contents:

1. Mission and Vision

2. Introduction

3. History

4. Membership and Attendance

5. Financial Profile

6. Building and Staff

7. Worship

8. Areas of growth

9. Internal Ministries

10. External Ministries

11. Parish Discrenment

12. Community Profile

A lot of work has already been done. The membership and attendance information has been compiled. The financial profile has been compiled and we will add the 2012 information after the annual meeting. The building and staff section has been written. The internal and external ministries sections are written and being edited. We have also been reworking and writing new copy for our history section. The community profile section has been written and is now being finalized.

We have also begun the work of discernment. The committee has created a written survey that we are ready to administer to the congregation. The vestry has reviewed the survey and our plan is to start the process at the annual meeting. There will be paper copies of the survey available at the annual meeting and we will also be mailing the survey. We are working on a way to have the survey available on-line. If we can get that working we may start the survey before the annual meeting.

We are also planning to hold two discernment focus groups. These will be held in February. We will post the exact dates soon. Between the written survey and the focus groups a vision for our future and a picture of who we are calling to help us get there will emerge.

The committee will also be working with the Rev. Lisa Gray who is the diocesan deployment officer. Once the committee has produced the profile, Rev. Gray will use it to advertise our open position in a national database.  Candidates will then reply directly to Rev. Gray and the Bishop who will then present a slate of candidates to the search committee.

Keep checking here for more updates. And please keep us in your prayers.

Kim Trumbore

October was a joyful and busy month. We had a wonderful opportunity to say goodbye to Pastor Chris. The celebration committee did a great job hosting well over a hundred people for dinner and reflection on Chris’ time at St. Mary’s.

We have begun the work of transition and discernment.  It is a time for us to come together as a church family to decide who we are now and more importantly who we would like to become. This process will lead us into searching for a new rector who will be the best fit for us, now and in the future.

The church profile is our chance to show potential candidates who we are and what we are looking for.

Dear Friends,

I am writing on behalf of the Vestry to give you another update on the progress of our planning for Pastor Chris’s retirement and the transition to new clergy leadership for St. Mary’s. As you recall, back in June we asked people to let us know whether or not they would be willing to serve on the key committees that will take leading roles in this process. I am happy to report that a number of people responded positively, and fromthose responses the Vestry was able to put together what we believe will be veryeffective groups to oversee the creation of a parish profile and conduct the rector search.Before I name the committees, let me tell you a little about the thinking that guided how the committees are constituted. There were several main factors that the Vestry considered:

First, since these are not committees of the Vestry but of the parish, current members of the Vestry could not serve on the Profile Committee, and continuingmembers of the Vestry could not serve on the Search Committee. Also, anyoneserving on the Search Committee would be ineligible to be elected to Vestry comeJanuary.

Second, those that were asked to serve on the Profile Committee were not toserve on the Search Committee. This is to prevent any individual or group ofpeople from exercising undue influence over the whole process.

Third, the make-up of the committees needed to reflect the basic demographics of the parish in terms of age, gender, family status (i.e. single, young children, etc.),primary service that they attend, and so on. Spouses could not serve on the samecommittee.

In all of this, the key consideration was that no group be over-represented or under-represented. The idea is that the committees, in their composition, should reflect theparish in microcosm. It was also important that those chosen met the basic standards for leadership roles at St. Mary’s in terms of regular attendance, stewardship, and thelike.

Finally, it was decided that a Warden would work with each of these two committees asa co-chair to provide leadership and act as liaison to the Vestry as a whole. Mike Tyler will take this role on the Profile Committee while the Warden elected by the Vestry after the annual meeting of the parish in January will fulfill that role on the Search Committee.

The following people have been asked to serve on these committees, and have agreed to take on these important responsibilities:

The following people will take lead roles in organizing the events to celebrate Pastor Chris’s ministry at St. Mary’s: Noela Beach, Melissa Breckenridge, Maxine Henderson, Patti and Roger Lee, Debora Lunney, Holly MacMahon, Sue Sanna.

If you are not a member of one of these committees, it does not mean that you have nopart to play as we move forward. As materials produced by the Episcopal Diocese ofPittsburgh reminds us, as a member of the congregation, your role is to:

Dear Friends,

On behalf of the Vestry, I would like to give you an update on the status of planning for what happens once Pastor Chris retires in October. The Vestry has held two special workshops to begin identifying and assigning responsibilities for the tasks that we will take on as we go through the process of transitioning to new clergy leadership for St. Mary’s.

The Vestry intends to meet once more before Summer is fully upon us to continue developing these preliminary plans. Mike Tyler, our other Warden, and I will also be meeting in the next few days with the Rev. Stacy Salles, the Dean of our region, to begin the dialogue with the Diocese about the clergy transition and search process.

At our last special meeting, the Vestry began to identify ministries and traditions of St. Mary’s that we believe are important to continue as we make this transition. The Vestry also identified three key committees that will play central roles in the process of preparing for and calling a new rector. Let me briefly describe these:

The Celebration Committee will take primary responsibility for planning, organizing, and carrying out an event to celebrate Pastor Chris’s 17 years of ministry with us.

The Profile Committee will have primary responsibility for compiling and producing a parish profile, a document which tells the story of St. Mary’s past and present and lays out a vision of our future. The profile serves as a primary vehicle for recruiting candidates interested in becoming the next rector of St. Mary’s.

Finally, the Search Committee will have primary responsibility for evaluating candidates’ applications, conducting interviews, and recommending finalists to the Vestry.

The Vestry will have the responsibility to select and call the new rector, with the approval of the Bishop.

The Vestry, at its last special meeting, also began to set out a tentative timeline for each of the above committees. The Celebration Committee should be in place by mid-August; Pastor Chris has asked that we hold the main celebration of her ministry on Oct. 8, a week before her last Sunday with us on Oct. 16.

The Profile Committee also should be in place by mid-August with the objective of completing the “fact-finding” part of the profile by mid-October, and then leading the parish-wide discernment efforts (congregational survey, meetings, focus groups, and so on) during November and December. The goal is to complete most of the work of preparing the profile by the end of December so that the position can be posted in January 2012. The Search Committee would then begin its work in January with the goal of calling a new rector by the end of June 2012. If all of this comes together as we envision, the next rector of St. Mary’s would be in place in the Fall of 2012.

Enclosed with this letter, you will find a card to fill out asking if you are interested in being considered to serve on one of the above committees. Please prayerfully consider whether you would be willing to offer your time, talents, and energy to one of these critical groups. The Vestry will decide the final composition of the committees, with an eye toward making the Profile and Search committees as representative of the overall parish membership as possible. If you are interested in being considered, please return your card by Sunday, June 26.

This is an exciting time to be a part of St. Mary’s, but there is also a great deal of work ahead of us. With your help, your support, and most importantly your prayers, we will move forward to discover the future that God has in store for St. Mary’s.

Yours in Christ,
Peter Trumbore, Warden