​With the recent warming outside, another season is upon us…. Potholes. As I work on my PHD (Pothole Dodging), we hit a pothole on our road to finding a new leader for our church. The conference ran the candidates and indicated a few strong matches.  However, these candidates already had accepted a role with another church.  The other candidates were not a strong fit for our church.  Therefore, we have reposted our advertisement and are search for more candidates.  The posting will be in effect until the middle of March.  So we see a minor delay, but have full faith that God has a good candidate for us.  Keep praying for our church, the search team, and the conference that the candidate will float to the top of stack.  Once we perform the interviews on these candidates, then he will be brought in for everyone to hear.  You will have a chance to vote for our next leader, however you will need to be a member to be eligible to vote.  If you are not a member, then talk to one of the church elders to become a member.  There is still time!

Progress is continuing to be made and it is getting exciting.  Our job ad was posted through the last week of January.  Many new candidates came into the Converge system with specific interest in Calvary (How exciting!). Our conference is now matching the candidates with the established requirements (from the surveys completed by all of you).  They will then contact the top candidates that best match our needs.  We should receive this final list of candidates by Friday, Feb 12.  We will then review each candidate’s material and watch samples of their sermons.

The Search Team will then conduct Zoom interviews with each candidate. We will then identify the top candidates for a second round of more in-depth interviews.  The top candidate will then come to our church for a review and for everyone to meet and hear a sermon from him.  We will then vote on this candidate.  We will make sure everyone knows when this will happen.  Most likely it will be end of March/first part of April. 
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Continue praying for all candidates, the converge conference to have wisdom as they review and interview the candidates, the Search Team to hear and know who God wants to lead our church family, and our church to remain strong through this process.

​Great progress is being made to determine the requirements of our next leader. Our church body has completed 58 surveys that will help determine these requirements. These have been sent to our conference for analysis and they will provide the feedback.  The Search Team will meet with our conference on Jan 9 to review the results and finalize the requirements.  The next steps after that will be to review the resumes and screen the candidates.  We will start bringing in candidates around the March timeframe for review by the entire church body.  Thanks for all your prayers and assistance in helping to determine the requirements we need for our future church leader.

Thank you for taking part in this survey. Your participation in helping us find the best candidate to lead our church body is greatly appreciated.  This survey should be completed by church attenders 16 years and older.  This is not just for church members.  We need to gather the information and opinions of all people that attend Calvary Church.

This survey is completely anonymous and will take between 30-45 minutes. If you cannot complete the survey in one session, you can leave and enter the survey where you left off if you use the same web browser on the same device.  If you need to complete a second survey on the same device, then you will need to erase the cookies/history on that device after completion of the first survey.

The link to the Calvary Church survey is:
https://theMinistryMatch.com/websurvey?sid=479

Once you complete the survey, please let John K know that you are completed by either emailing him at:  john65kissinger@yahoo.com  or telling him at church.  He will be following up with individuals that have not communicated the completion status of their survey. 

Thanks again for your participation in this important step to determine the needs of our church body

The Search Team along with the Administrative Council has started to put together a few of the pieces that will allow us to identify the right individual for the lead pastor role of our church body.  However, the largest piece will be launched soon – the Church Effectiveness Survey.  This survey will gather key information concerning our church body. The Bible exhorts us to get the facts before making decisions.  “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.” A survey is merely an efficient way of doing this.

Each of you is a part of our body.  We need the commitment of every person to get the information we must collect.

Further instructions regarding the survey will be given once the survey questions have been locked.

Thank you!

Introducing the search team!

• John Kissinger (chair)
• Brooke Kemler (data recorder)
• Carmen Friddle
• Eric Carpenter
• Paul Hull
• Robert Clinton

Have questions? Any one of these search team members would be happy to answer your questions.