Senior Minister
Search Committee Covenant
The members of the Search Committee for First Congo have been selected recognizing the impact of its efforts, deliberations, and recommendations to the church, its mission, ministries, and the spiritual health of our congregation.
We agree to this covenant as a committee and representing our congregation. This covenant includes:
A COVENANT OF PRAYER
We will uphold one another in prayer and use prayer throughout our search process to help ground our efforts and to secure our next Senior Minister.
A COVENANT OF TRUST AND HONEST COMMUNICATION
Utilizing our Discernment Listening Guidelines, we will speak openly and honestly with one another without taking offense, realizing that we need the opportunity of “thinking aloud” to help sort out impressions and responses as we consider our church’s needs and evaluate potential candidates.
A COVENANT OF CONFIDENTIALITY
We will treat, with confidentiality, Committee discussions and evaluations regarding specific potential candidates. We will deal responsibly with privileged information. We will agree as a Committee on progress reports to our Executive Committee and the congregation. We will not criticize perspectives, decisions or members of the Committee and, while in committee meetings, will again follow our Discernment Listening Guidelines.
A COVENANT OF ACCOUNTABILITY
We will proceed with ethical sensitivity and thoroughness in all recruiting, selection and assessment activities when considering all pastoral candidates. We recognize our accountability to First Congo and our congregation for all of our actions and decisions.
A COVENANT OF UNITY/CONSENSUS
We will present to Executive Committee and the congregation for its consideration only such recommendations as we can fully support them as a Committee. Where there are honest differences of opinion, we covenant to work these out before making a recommendation to the church.