The Search Committee officially handed their work over to the vestry at last Thursday’s vestry meeting. Senior Warden Helen Crandell will guide the vestry as the process to select a new rector continues.

The vestry will begin by reviewing the vast amount of information amassed by the Search Committee in their part of the search process. The vestry must examine not only the written material submitted by the candidates, but interview transcripts and videos of their sermons as well. Like the Search Committee, the vestry will keep in mind the wants and needs expressed by members of the congregation during Listening Sessions and on surveys as they were printed in the Parish Profile.

Search Committee Chaplain Mary Myers wrote the following Prayer for Communal Discernment. Helen Crandell read it to the vestry to inspire them as they begin their work.

PRAYER FOR COMMUNAL DISCERNMENT

Good and loving God, our source of love and light –
Thank you for bringing us together as we say “Yes”
to your call upon our lives to discern the
best candidate for rector of St Michael and
and All Angels.

May we honor one another by keeping an open mind.

May we voice our truth and listen to one another with
an open heart.

May we ground our process in the wisdom of the Parish
Profile and the work of the Search Committee to
prepare ourselves to discern your will in the
decision that is before us.

We ask for your wisdom and grace as we prayerfully
and diligently do all that is required to
complete this task on behalf of our community

We trust we do not do this work alone, but that your
Spirit is ever present guiding us in all the ways
you have guided and blessed those whose work we now
continue and complete.

Keep ever before us, the needs, hopes and dreams of this community we
are called to serve in your name as we discern your will for
our next rector and for the future you are calling us into.

AMEN