I joined the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) three years ago, and now--finally--this part of the journey is over. Just last week, I accepted the invitation from the pastor nominating committee (PNC) at First Presbyterian Church in Muscatine, Iowa to be their candidate for pastor, their "pastor nominee." As it looks right now, I will meet and preach before the congregation in October and then they will vote to extend a call to me to come be their pastor. And the Presbytery of East Iowa will be there to assist and approve each step.
Then in November sometime, I can be ordained and then I can be installed as the pastor of First Pres Muscatine. It would be great to begin ministry there on December 2nd, the first Sunday of Advent. I will have my ordination at First Presbyterian in Fort Worth, where I have been a member since 2004 and where I have been nurtured and loved so well.
This search and call process is, as Muscatine PNC chair Al has said so well, a mysterious process. I have been changed just by going through this extensive discernment period. My information form (my PIF) has been computer matched with church's information forms (CIF). This has happened about 12 times since my PIF was posted on April 29th. But I have had the best sucess with self-referrals. I sent my PIF to __ churches that I was interested in and I received very good response. I had phone/email interviews with 6 of those churches and 4 of them invited me to come for an onsite interview including preaching. All were in the Midwest! And of the 4 I interviewed with, 3 extended me an invitation to be their pastor-nominee. The 4th was still interviewing other candidates but wanted to keep conversation with me.
So why not Texas? Who knows! Laura and I both scoured the search website (Church Leadership Connection) for churches in Texas, but found nothing that I resonated with or that would have been a good match. Nothing in Grace Presbytery (North Texas) or Texas after 4 to 5 months of looking. So we opened up and found lots of great churches in the Midwest that were attractive. It will be hard to leave family and friends here in Texas, but it will also be good change. Laura was attracted to Iowa after looking at a website that talked about all the benefits of Iowa, including a balanced lifestyle. Why Iowa? Iowa here we come!
Muscatine? More here than meets the eye. Check out the Visitors Bureau. It's nice small city of 23,000 residents with large employers that draw people in from the county. Close to the Quad Cities and to Iowa City. Sits right on the Mississippi River. And the people there are fantastic.
Laura and I traveled there Fri Aug 17th -- Sunday Aug 19th. The experience we had with the committee was profound and remarkable in many ways. It was so obvious to me that the committee had done some deep connecting that allowed them to share intimately with each other. They expressed a strong sense of purpose for their church to reach out to the community as well as care for each other. Laura and I both found a natural way of being with them that allowed us to feel at home and at ease almost immediately. In short, I fell in love and the feeling was mutual. I continued to be open for the two other interviews that I had. One experience came very close, and it was extremely difficult to say no to them. But it was still clear that Muscatine is the best match. So I called them last week to accept and there was celebration! Joy, excitement, clarity and peace about this whole new adventure.
The church itself is in good shape in many aspects. There are just over 300 members, around 125 in worship on average Sunday, and 6 staff members, most part time. Compared to First Pres here in Fort Worth, that sounds small, but it is actually a good-sized program church and well above average in membership, worship attendance and giving. Mission-oriented, it has several signs of vitality around. They redesigned and remodeled the sanctuary about 3-5 years ago and it is absolutely beautiful. Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought that the church in Muscatine would consider a candidate like me. But here I am, thanks be to God.
So we are moving to Iowa, probably in November. More about that later!
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