by Brian Ives, Pastoral Nominating Committee Chair

The Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC) has begun its next phase of work: receiving and evaluating Personal Information Forms (PIFs) from candidates. Our Church Information Form (CIF) has been completed, approved by Session and Presbytery, and posted online for view by any potential candidate. You can see our CIF at Bethany’s website (www.bethanypc.org) under “PNC.”

We will now begin the process of prayerfully and thoroughly reviewing and evaluating each PIF. Then, we will send follow-up questions to some candidates of interest, conduct phone interviews, call references, send additional questions, and have additional phone interviews. Eventually, we hope to have three to five candidates who seem to be good fits for Bethany, and we will invite those candidates to visit with the PNC for a weekend and to preach at a neutral pulpit. And from these, we trust that God will point us to the one who is the right fit for Bethany at this time. We will then introduce that candidate to the congregation and ask for your approval.

So that is much of the process. Would you join us in praying for this process and the people involved in it? Pray for the candidates and their families and their congregations. Pray for the PNC, that we would humbly listen to God and to each other. Pray for our Bethany community, that we will be ready to hear God’s words to us through the voice of a new senior pastor.