Ministry Site Profile submitted to ELCA, October 2022
The Ministry Site Profile (MSP) is completed! Our Call Committee has met every week since mid-May (with the exception of 3 weeks in July while we were waiting for you to complete the survey) with the primary task of writing this document. It asks what the characteristics of our congregation are, what are the trends we see in our community and our congregation, for what do we have energy, what is our purpose, how are we gifted and what are some of the tasks and gifts we think are needed with our associate pastor. It’s 14 pages long! On October 10, we met with our congregation council along with the Rev. Beth Martini, Assistant to the Bishop for Mobility to review it and the council has adopted it.
We’re glad to be able to share it with you. You can read the submitted MSP, or you can also contact our church office if you want to request a printed copy of it.
What happens after this? For now, the work goes in the hands of our Bishop and his Assistants. We’ve included in our profile that we are open to either a pastor with experience or a first call candidate who is approved for ordination, that is, someone just out of seminary. To better understand what happens from that point, we’ll provide a full description of how the process works form here in the November Messenger.
So you can see even though this important document is now finished, it will still take some significant time to complete the process. So please keep praying! And we’ll keep you up to date as much as possible.
The Call Committee
Meet Our Call Committee (printed in the July Messenger)
The Council has taken the first step in the call process for a second pastor by appointing a Call Committee. Council members shared possible names and determined who would make up the committee. The Committee met for an organizational meeting with Council President, Kyle Smith and Pr. Beth Martini, Assistant to Bishop Dunlop for Mobility, who attended via Zoom. The members of the Call Committee are Lucinda Bringman, Amy Crist, Jim Flanagan, Ernie Kranias, Glenn Munsee, Kasey Smith, and Anne Lane (committee alternate), with Shirley Sanders as Congregation Council Liaison. The committee together determined that Lucinda Bringman will serve as Chair, Amy Crist as Recorder and Glenn Munsee as Chaplain.
Our synod describes the steps in the Call Process by likening them to the 12-steps on a clock, and we are already at step 3! Our current task is to develop the Ministry Site Profile for St. James. This is an in-depth document to describe who we are, focusing on our
- vision for mission, including trends in our community context
- characteristics
- purpose, giftedness and mission, and finally,
- leadership needs
Obviously, this is not a simple document to complete, and will take significant time. You can be sure we will be coming to you for help and input for this, and the document will be entirely public within our congregation.
At the point when we feel that it is finished, our council will need to vote to accept it as our Ministry Site Profile. Then it will electronically go to the ELCA. Bishop Dunlop and his staff will work with our document to prayerfully recommend names of possible pastors or seminarian candidates for ordination to us.
We intend to keep you as informed as we possibly can, with the understanding that at the point of which we receive names of possible candidate(s) for the position, our work will become confidential for a time. Feel free to contact any member of the call committee with questions or concerns.
We invite you to watch an important video, Overview of the Call Process, provided by our synod office, with a message from Bishop Dunlop and explanations by Pr. Martini, which describes the call process in much more depth.
Also on this website is additional information and resources that will assist in the Call Process.
Yours In Christ,
Lucinda Bringman
Amy Crist
Jim Flanagan
Ernie Kranias
Glenn Munsee
Kasey Smith
Anne Lane, committee alternate
Shirley Sanders, Congregation Council Liaison