Congregational Update

Pastoral Search Process – June 12, 2024

“And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  

Romans 8:27-28

Guided by the Holy Spirit, the listening process for what we need in our next pastor is well underway, under the leadership of the Thriving Congregations team. 

Our formal listening efforts started with “Pie Night” in April, where we gathered to share hopes and dreams for Caldwell and our future pastoral leadership. This is being followed by a number of House Meetings with various Caldwell groups such as the Session, ACE class, choir, book club, youth group, ARCC, and others over the next several months. Our goal is to hear from every single Caldwell member. If you can’t attend a House Meeting, a member of Thriving Congregations would be happy to meet with you one on one; please contact Merrilyn Gill here to set that up. Or, if you prefer to provide anonymous feedback, you can do so here: Many thanks to all of the members of the Thriving Congregations team for leading this effort to invite and listen to all voices.

The listening sessions have provided rich, honest, authentic input into the pastoral search process – thank you! There have also been a few common questions raised, which we’d like to address. 

Why can’t we just hire Dot into a long-term role?  God knew exactly what we needed during this transitional season, and we are so grateful that Dot has joined Caldwell’s staff as our Temporary Associate Pastor. Dot’s call to ministry is to help congregations through these types of transitions, and she does not intend to pursue a long-term pastoral role at Caldwell or elsewhere. 

If we hire an Associate Pastor, can that person become our head Pastor when John retires (in about five years, as he has previously communicated)? Should we look for someone with that in mind? Under Presbyterian governance, ordinarily an associate pastor is not eligible to become the next installed pastor of the congregation that they are serving. There is a process to seek support from the Presbytery for that exception, if such a step aligns with the congregation’s mission. Our pastor nominating committee (to be elected) will prayerfully consider how to reflect Caldwell’s near- and long-term needs when preparing the Ministry Information Form (MIF) that will be used to describe Caldwell and the position for candidates for our role.

I’ve heard the term Co-Pastor in addition to Associate Pastor. I’m not clear on what the difference is or why we would consider this. An Associate Pastor reports to the Pastor, and generally has a few specific areas of focus, such as congregational care or worship leadership. This is the model we used with Gail and that we currently have with Dot, who is serving as our Temporary Associate Pastor reporting to John.

In a Co-Pastor model, two lead pastors share the responsibility of pastoral leadership with equal responsibility. Neither reports to the other. There are several benefits to a Co-Pastor model, including additional leadership capacity for our church and its missions as well as continuity of senior leadership when John retires (he is thinking in about 5 years). The flip side is that shared leadership can bring its own challenges, and we would need to make sure our financial realities can support this more expensive approach.

There are many factors that will go into the Session’s decision on which model to pursue. Your feedback through the Listening Sessions on what you would like Caldwell to be over the next 3-5 years and beyond will be a key input to this decision.

What’s next? This fall, we will transition from our first phase, Listen, to the second phase of the process: Prepare. Thriving Congregations will provide the Session with a report on what you shared during the listening process, which the Session will use as one input to their work. The Congregation will also take the important step of electing a Nominating Committee, who will then work on the Ministry Information Form (MIF) describing Caldwell and what we are searching for in a pastor. Please start praying for whom we should elect to represent us on this critical work.

As we continue through this process, it’s important that we do it together, with clarity and transparency at every step. We’ve set up a webpage to hold all of our updates as well as a visual of the process for easy reference. If you have questions, please reach out to any of the following individuals, or any member of Caldwell staff:

Thank you for your engagement, your input, and your continued prayers for Caldwell as we walk this journey together.