Unity in the Pastor Search Team

Unity in the Pastor Search Team – In the spirit of our recent Unity theme, Pastor Search team was asked to share a little about our transformational journey from a group of individuals to a unified group, without losing ourselves in the process!

Our team was made up to be representative of our church body; older, younger, married, single, divorced, widowed, parents, grandparents, and great-grand parents, student, working, and retired! We all came from different backgrounds and experiences, and we were all called together for ONE purpose, to discern the Spirit’s leading to call the next pastor of our beloved church. 

Even when you’ve known someone for a while, you don’t really know them until you work side by side, week by week, sharing meals, prayers, laughs, stories, wins and losses with them as a team, working toward the same goal, asking for God’s direction. We decided early on in the process that in the end, we wanted to have a unanimous decision, a chance to prove to ourselves that the Holy Spirit was guiding us all together toward a calling. Knowing that helped us to stay open and not focused on what each of us may have thought we wanted in the beginning of the process.  

For over a year, we learned about ourselves and each other’s perspectives as we talked through important topics. We repeated some discussions on stickier topics again and again, respectfully staying open to each others’ point of view. We laughed, cried, mourned and celebrated along the way, and some days we felt there would be no end to this process!

In the end, we transformed from individuals to a unified team. Through the work of the Spirit, and a commitment to keeping our hearts open, we were able to hear each other, see each other in new ways, and rejoice in the accomplishment of reaching our goal with deeper friendships and understanding than when we began.