Discernment Committee Update

Friends,

I am delighted to share that the St. John’s Discernment Committee is officially underway! The Discernment Committee is made up of individuals who were nominated across our St. John’s community and were appointed through a vote of the Vestry. As you may have seen in “This Week at St. John’s” this committee is made up of Jo Blackwood, Mary Fitzgerald, Page Hamrick, Christy Morris, Bren Pomponio and myself. I have been elected Chair of this committee by its membership, and I am honored to serve St. John’s in this way.

“Discernment” is the process which parishes undergo to select clergy for their congregation. In a discernment process, representatives of the parish are nominated to lead the search for a priest who is called by God to be in ministry with the parish. As a Committee, we are charged with completing a Parish Profile (which will showcase both our community at St. John’s and our community of Charleston and West Virginia as a whole), conducting interviews with candidates, and leading a review process. After prayerful consideration, it is our hope that we will be able to present a candidate to the Vestry to consider and vote on to be called as our next Rector. We will engage in this task in partnership with the Diocese.

It’s important to note that being called to ministry does not necessarily mean the “best priest” or “most qualified” to serve as our next rector. As like a hiring process outside of a faith based community, one must ensure in a hiring process that the candidate is not just “good on paper”; rather it is important to ensure that the candidate would be a good fit on the whole. And as with any hiring process, we as the Committee have a responsibility to the candidates to handle applications with sensitivity and confidentiality. As a result, the members of the committee will not be able to speak publicly on our process just yet. When the Holy Spirit guides us to find the right candidate, we will inform the parish of steps as appropriate. There is no set timeline for this process overall, but we do intend to move with momentum and purpose. In future issues of The Interchange, I will provide written updates to the parish as is appropriate to do so.

In the meantime, we ask for your continued prayers for us as a Committee, for Rev. Chad as he supports our work on behalf of the Diocese, and for those candidates who may feel called to serve our parish and community. The time ahead may be unknown to us now, but God will reveal it to us in God’s own time and through God’s own grace. I look forward to providing an update as soon as we are able to share.

Respectfully submitted,

Erin McGrath Susman