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The Search Committee met with the congregation after the 8am and 10 am services on Sunday June 27th to report back on what we heard from the parish based on our two Town Hall Meetings, our Parish Survey and the conversations had with each individual ministry of St. Francis. The level of participation in this process has been phenomenal and shows us how very important our choice for a new rector is to all of us.
WHAT WE HEARD
We are a vibrant and interesting community that cares deeply about our parish family. We are a highly educated group of people. 84% of us have a college degree. 41% of us have a post graduate degree. Almost ¾ of us are married. We are predominately white, but our parish family includes African Americans, Latinos, Pacific Islanders and Asians. We have a significant number of members of the LGBT community. Half of our members are between 50 and 70 years of age. The other half spread over both sides of the age range. We have many octogenarians and a significant number of families with small children. We are not a particularly wealthy parish and could be categorized as middle class for the most part. We have many that have been here over 20 years while half of us have been here between 2 – 10 years. 94% of us consider ourselves members of St. Francis and half of us were not raised as Episcopalians and have had interesting journeys getting here.
The things that brought us here were: Hearing good things about St. Francis, a welcoming & caring community, the diversity represented here in both people & ideas, childcare & youth groups, music & worship style and the beauty of our church.
What keeps us here: The warm & caring community, the diversity, music, clergy and outreach.
Some of the things that came through loud and clear: We are liturgically & musically conservative, but socially liberal. We are intelligent, educated, articulate and involved. We are concerned.
We think you will be pleased to see yourselves represented in the pages of the complete Parish Profile to be available on line soon. Meanwhile, we are working diligently on the final draft and expect to have it ready to go on line in a couple of weeks. You have all been so present in your participation and we as a committee want to make sure that you and your efforts are truly represented in this profile. We thank you for all you have given us.
We expect to have our first applicants respond in early September after summer vacations have ended. We could most likely have up to 50 candidates. After the Bishop’s office has looked at all of the candidates, we will do a series of phone interviews. After paring down the prospective candidates we will visit those finalists in their parish environments. And finally give to the Vestry a list of 3 to 4 candidates for their consideration. This should be towards the end of the year, perhaps November, December. It all takes time to insure that we get the perfect match, but we are working hard towards completion of the process without compromising our best efforts.
The Profile and Search Committee Members