Irenic Thoughts

Irenic. The word means peaceful. This web log (or blog) exists to create an ongoing, and hopefully peaceful, series of comments on the life of King of Peace Episcopal Church. This is not a closed community. You are highly encouraged to comment on any post or to send your own posts.

10/21/2007

Visitors Expected

Annunciation, Vidalia
Today, I am celebrating communion and preaching at The Episcopal Church of the Annunciation in Vidalia, Georgia. I will stay after the worship service to speak with leaders in the congregation as they think out loud about their search process for a new priest. They aren't considering hiring me. My job today (in addition to leading worship) is to help them consider what to think about as they move ahead with hiring someone to replace the rev. Ron Southerland who has been their priest of 18 years.

The church's website carries the intriguing name of visitors-expected.org. The church uses that same tag line on their signs. This fits well with my own attitude in sweeping up the church hall and other areas in advance of our worship services which is "This is God's House and we've got company coming!"

I know that King of Peace and any church can get well used during the week and so it takes some last minute sprucing up, but this is just part of the anticipation of getting God's House in order for our worship. In what other ways can we live into expecting visitors? What does a church look like and act like where visitors expected that might not be the case if we think that everyone who should come to our church already does?

Y'all who attend King of Peace enjoy the Rev. John Rogers who will be celebrating and preaching today at King of Peace and I will see you at church the next time you come. We'll be expecting those who attend regularly as well as visitors!

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

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posted by King of Peace @ Sunday, October 21, 2007  

3 Comments:

  • At 10/21/2007 2:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Rev. Rogers is enjoyable, and he does something that just amazes me...He gives a whole wonderful sermon with no notes and doesn't even hold on to the pulpit for support!

    The Episcopal Church of the Annunciation is very beautiful, but I'm happy that you're not looking for employment there! I didn't know that individual churches hired their own pastors. In the Roman Catholic Church, you have to take who the Bishop sends, no matter what.

    It would be interesting to know what criteria, other than experience, goes in to the hiring process of a pastor. And, what if he/she doesn't work out?

     

  • At 10/21/2007 4:40 PM, Blogger King of Peace said…

    Annunciation, Vidalia is a beautiful church. Their current building was completed about a year before ours.

    I also preached from the midle today with no notes. Their pulpit didn't look as comfy as ours and not near as good a feel to hold on to. It was a nice change up to handle a 12 minute sermon from no notes.

    A new priest is hired through a process in which a parish works together to create a profile that tells about the church and what they are looking for in a priest. Then that committee usually looks through the Church Deployment Office files of priests looking for a church. So, I have a CDO profile with The Episcopal Church but it is marked that I would not consider a call from another church. Anyway, it is usually listed various places and then the deployment officer for the Diocese works with a church to get a short list of candidates. Then the prospective priests are interviewed, visited where they are and then a few or less are invited to come for a test drive of the new church. At some point, the call committee and the vestry seek the Bishops approval of the person they have selected. This is given in most all cases and the hire is made.

    I saw all this having watched the process from afar. As a church planter, I never went through that system, but was hired by the Bishop to start a church.

    If the person doesn't work out, there are steps for either an unhappy priest or unhappy congregation to go through. A congregation can't just fire a priest without the Bishop's approval. In theory the Bishop, priest and church board must all agree to disolve the relationship. In practice if either the priest or congregation is unhappy, it usually works out for things to come to an end. That said, Episcopal priests tend to be in place for a decade or more before a move.

    peace,
    Frank+

     

  • At 10/21/2007 7:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Thanks for the informantion!...And...great job preaching without notes or a comfortable pulpit!!!!

     

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