• Office of Transition Ministry official parish profile
• Summary of Discernment Survey
• Complete Survey Results

PARISH PROFILE

St. Mary’s in-the-Hills Parish Profile PDF version

At the meeting on April 15, the committee focused their discussion on process of interviewing and criteria for evaluating and ranking candidates.  On April 22, the Rev. Canon Lisa Gray, the diocesan Canon to the Ordinary, met with the Search Committee and went over the process that will unfold as we move forward, tentative timelines for the search, and provided an overview of some of the tasks still ahead.

The opening for a new rector for St. Mary’s “went live” in the national church database in late March and will is currently scheduled to remain open until the middle of May.  We expect to receive the names and packets for candidates by early June.  At that point the Search Committee will begin to evaluate the candidates, schedule and conduct phone and/or Skype interviews, and plan and conduct visits to the churches of candidates that we are seriously considering so that members of the Search Committee can “see them in action.”  As we narrow the list of candidates to a smaller group of finalists, those individuals will be invited here to interview with the Search Committee, visit our communities, and meet with Bishop Gibbs.  If all goes well, these interviews and visits will unfold over the summer months, and by the fall we will be in the final stages of the search process.

The Search Committee will meet next on March 29 with the members of the Profile Committee.  At that meeting the two groups will be go over the profile and the results of the discernment exercises, and then the Profile Committee will officially hand off to the Search Committee.

Complete Survey Results

Thanks again for your continued support in our efforts. Please keep us in your prayers.

Just click here for the summary:

Summary of Discernment Survey

Attending – Chris Beach, Kristin Kahrs, John McKenna, Ann Spear, Dan Tines, Viki Toll, Peter Trumbore, Andrew Tyler

Absent – Katharine Beem, Hannah Gutelius, Paul Henderson, Tony Pelc

The meeting was opened by Kristin Kahrs with prayer #28, pg. 824. The Book of Common Prayer.

After short introductions, Warden John McKenna discussed his role on the Search Committee.  He intends to function as a liaison to and representative from the Vestry rather than as a full member of the Search Committee.  Discussion turned to functioning of the committee and committee leadership.  There is general agreement that the committee will need a formal chair and perhaps co-chair.  Because he may not be available to attend the next meeting, Chris Beach wanted to nominate the following people for consideration: Peter Trumbore, Dan Tines, and Kristin Kahrs.  As this was an informal meeting, no further discussion of candidates was engaged and no decisions were made.

John McKenna updated the committee on the transition process to date – Much of the work on the parish profile has been completed.  The Rev. Lisa Gray, the diocesan deployment officer, asked for a preliminary draft of the profile to take with her to a conference in which she would meet and network with other deployment officers from around the country.  She has begun the process of “shopping” our opening to potential candidates.  Pete Trumbore added some details of the history of the transition, formation of the profile and search committees, and relationship with Canon Gray.

UPDATE – The profile has not yet been uploaded to the national church database, as Canon Gray requested some additional edits.  It will likely be uploaded within the next week or so, at which point our opening will be visible to any clergy looking for possible new positions.

According to John and Pete, Canon Gray will pre-screen applicants so that the Diocese can pre-approve any candidates we might consider.  She will then deliver to the search committee a list of names and their materials for us to evaluate.  Therefore any name that comes to us has already been approved by the bishop to serve at St. Mary’s.

It was agreed that it would be incumbent upon us to be extremely proactive in drawing out timelines, objectives, and deadlines in the next leg of the search process so as to avoid any problems of communication and coordination with the diocese moving forward.

General discussion ensued about developing a good working group dynamic.  Attention was given to how to keep every member of the search committee in the loop and engaged if they are unable to attend scheduled meetings.  Ann Spear volunteered that she can help us to capture the meetings on video then upload for anyone that might not be in attendance.  Chris suggested that we can relay much information through email.  If it transpires that voting needs to occur via email, John recommended that those kinds of things would go through him.  John is not considered a voting member of the committee.  There was support in principle on these points.  There was general agreement that in-person meetings are desirable, and that if decisions are to made that a quorum would be required. We will continue discussing these points further at future meetings.

The discussion turned toward next steps. Chris brings up budgeting concerns: What resources are available for phone, flying, other travel expenses, etc.  Pete responded that the Vestry approved a $20,000 line item to cover search costs, including any relocation costs for the priest we ultimately call as rector.

Additional points:

The Rev. Roger Derby, who has been working with the profile committee, will serve as a consultant with the search committee and as a go-between for Canon Gray and the committee.

In terms of future meetings, it seems that Sunday afternoons are the best possible fit for the most people.  To that end, the next meeting of the search committee will be on Sunday, March 25th at 11:30 a.m. (until 1:30 p.m.) with Roger Derby.  This will serve as the first formal meeting of the search committee.  Dan suggested that Canon Gray be invited as well.  Pete will extend an invitation.

Pete spoke a bit about the history of this particular model of search in this diocese (i.e. split profile and search committees).  In a prior meeting in the fall with Canon Gray, Pete was told that this model had failed when tried elsewhere in the diocese.  Past profile committees in other parishes were apparently unable to “let go” when it was time to hand the process over to their respective search committees.   There was apparently a low degree of trust that the search committees would honor the work that the profile committees had done.  Pete suggested that when the St. Mary’s profile committee hands off to the search committee that we should do a lot of listening, ask a lot questions, and specifically avoid second guessing the other group’s work. We must steadfastly avoid reinventing the wheel.

Discussion ensued over continuing relationship with the profile committee: Will there be a profile presentation to the congregation? If we have questions, we can go back to profile committee? Kristin suggested that perhaps the profile committee could have a representative on the search team. This is roundly rejected.  It is agreed that if we trusted them to do their job, they should trust us to do ours, and that continuing to refer to the profile committee would be counterproductive.

Dan suggested that members of the committee have lots of experience upon which to draw, human resources-wise, in hiring in other settings, and so on.  This could make it more difficult to settle upon the best approach.

Ann offered to take responsibility for developing an agenda for the next meeting, with input from the rest of the group.  It was recognized that the individual taking minutes of the meeting was effectively taken out of the discussion, and so there was general agreement that responsibility for minutes should rotate meeting to meeting.

The meeting closed with prayer, #57, p. 842, The Book of Common Prayer.

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 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.

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

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: