Monday, September 22, 2008

Using a Discernment model for church nominating committees

A nominating committee is looking for elders, deacons, or perhaps for persons to serve on a pastor nominating committee. How does it go about its work? If your church is like most, the committee meets, begins with a brief prayer, then starts to work their way through the church directory, figuring out who has served, is serving, or may be qualified and willing to serve in the future. In many ways, the model we use in our churches is a “board of directors” model. We look at a person’s time, talents, and resources – and nominate accordingly. If it weren’t for that prayer at the start and end of the meeting, you could transplant our process to almost any non-profit organization.

At a pre-presbytery event in September, we were introduced to another way of doing the business of the nominating committee: a discernment model. In this five-meeting-model prayer is central. And, often the committee is done with their work after only five meetings. Intrigued? We would love to introduce you and your nominating committee to this process. Just let us know!

Monday, September 15, 2008

Welcome to the SFMT blog!

Greetings, SFMT friends!

Here is a place to share what is happening with our ministry team in Seattle Presbytery.

Our September prayer time was led by Doug Early. He guided us in the use of the Jesus Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy on me, a sinner.

Using our breath for rhythm, we prayed this prayer silently for 15-20 minutes.

Doug then invited each of us to make our own prayer in the same style: using a name for God that reflects how we address God, and what we would respond if Jesus were to ask us "what do you want me to do for you?" Then we prayed our prayer in the same way we had prayed the Jesus Prayer. An example might be "Savior, heal me" or "Holy One, grant me peace."

These prayer exercises came from the book "Lord, Teach us to Pray" -- a great resource available from the PCUSA:
http://www.pcusa.org/marketplace​ (search for "Lord, teach us to pray")
We will use various prayers from this resource in our monthly meetings in the coming months.





Upcoming Events

Tuesday, September 16, 4:00 -4:45 "Using discernment with church nominating committees," Calvary Pres., Enumclaw

Tuesday, October 14, 12-1 Presbyterian spiritual directors brown bag lunch, Wedgwood Pres., Seattle

Tuesday, October 14, 1-2 Monthly SFMT prayer time, followed from 2-2:30 by our team meeting, Wedgwood Pres., Seattle

Advent retreat day (date TBD)

An invitation to explore group spiritual direction. Groups will be formed to meet monthly from January - June 2009. Look for publicity in November.