Pastoral Transition - Interim Working Team

Who is the Interim Working Team and What Do They Do?

The Interim Working Team includes:

David Bennett, davidbennett@rcn.com
Jeanine Derr, jeaninederr@aol.com
Liz Fritsch, Fritscheb@aol.com
Leon Goodson, wlgoodson@comcast.net
Mary Grossnick, grossnick@verizon.net
Paul Leistra, leistrap@hotmail.com
The team also includes the following ex officio members:
Sidney Fowler, Interim Senior Minister, sidfowler@comcast.net
Robert Maddox, Acting Senior Pastor, robtjr11@comcast.net
Jessica Petersen, Minister for Children, Youth & Families, jpeteresen@westmorelanducc.org
David Batson, Moderator, david_batson@verizon.net
Pierre Toureille, prtoureille@sprint.blackberry.net

The Interim Working Team is charged by the Executive Committee to:

provide prayerful and intentional care to assure congregation-wide contributions to the review, insights, and process of the interim tasks.
identify essential “spheres of influence” to listen to during the interim phase and to suggest the appropriate method for listening (spheres might/should include boards and committees, special groups within the congregation, choir, youth and children, neighborhood/demographics, UCC perspectives, futures imagining, staff).
recommend benchmark dates and timeline for completion of tasks.
communicate with and engage the wider community with the overall process.
share leadership in both carrying out interim listening and programmatic tasks.
begin spiritual practices to be considered in the search process.
suggest continuity between the discernment of identity phase of the interim tasks with the search and call process.
compose the position description for members of the Pastoral Search Committee.
create a process to invite the entire congregation to suggest possible members of the Pastoral Search Committee.
nominate a slate of candidates for Pastoral Search Committee that is voted on by the entire congregation.
provide needed, essential, and well-grounded data to include in the congregation’s profile.
assist in identifying linkages between outcomes and other “non-search and call aspects” of the congregations’ life – for example, governance, identity promotion.

The rationale for the Interim Working Team:

From the beginning, the team offers a spiritual group with intentional care to the interim tasks – a group especially committed to both listening to the widest possible constituencies within the congregation and to identifying outside voices and visions.
Provides a team that is charged with offering a comprehensive process that assures a faithful picture of the congregation’s vision for the future.
Both the search committee and the church profile are grounded in the overall discernment and interim tasks – drawing upon any emerging consensus as to identity and vision for the congregation’s future.

Qualities of leadership for Interim Working Team members:

Four to six people who value collaborative and collegial work, who are enthused about the future of the congregation and who the congregation might reach out to, who feel called into a work that is a spiritual, prayerful work, who have interest and skills in listening, and who are committed to seeking and listening to others outside their own constituency.

Reflections from Members of the Interim Working Team

In the December 2010 Westmoreland, Jeanine Derr said:

I want to share with you, members and friends of Westmoreland, the work and progress of the Interim Working Team. David Bennett, Liz Fritsch, Leon Goodson, Mary Grossnick, Paul Leistra and I are serving together under the spiritual guidance of Sid Fowler, Interim Senior Minister, and Bob Maddox, Acting Senior Pastor. David Batson, moderator, and Pierre Toureille, moderator-elect have also joined us.

I used the word “work,” but that is not really accurate. I do not feel like it is “work” to gather with fellow members as we seek to listen to the congregation’s hopes and prayers for the church. For me, this is a time of reconnecting with the church and reflecting upon what I, and the church, am called to be and do.