The Search for a New Rector

A time of search for a new Priest is an opportunity for growth, change and excitement. You will receive guidance from the Diocesan Deployment Office, but here is an outline of how events may unfold. Remember that this entire process should begin and end and be constantly covered with prayer.

Your Vestry will be asked to appoint a Search Committee. These will be ten to fifteen parish members who can work together and represent a cross-section of your parish. The Search Committee will be charged to work together and work confidentially. They will be sifting through confidential data and conducting sensitive interviews. Their goal is to find and select candidates whom they will recommend to the Vestry for a call to minister to their parish. The search should not begin until after the sitting Rector has left. The Vestry will be charged with finding and signing a Letter of Agreement with a priest to serve as Interim while the search is being conducted.

This is a time for change. You will not be allowed to recommend any assistant priest you might have to become your next Rector. This is a time for prayer and introspection. A first step will be to conduct a parish survey and write a parish profile. You want to take a look at who you are and where you are going. You want to draft a profile of the priest you are looking for and an estimate of the financial package you are able to offer. The national church maintains a database of all Episcopal clergy. The next step is to submit your profile to them and they return resumes on selected clergy. You will also advertise in such publications as The Living Church and Episcopal Life.  The Deployment Officer of the Diocese will screen all candidates to assure there are no red flags in the person’s file.  Some of these matches will look good to you. Others will not be interested in you. Still others will be matches that only a machine could envision.

It is important to remember that you are calling a priest to your parish to also have a role within the Diocese. If the priest is called from afar, he will come under the responsibility of your Bishop. Also, your Bishop knows his own clergy and may know who is ready for a move.

Your Search Committee will pour over the resumes they will receive. Often it is helpful to ask prospective candidates to answer a few short pertinent questions in essay form and also to send the committee tapes of a sermon or two.  They will select a "short list" with whom they will conduct telephone interviews. A conference call with a speaker phone seems to work best. Some Search Committees have reported that priests look different to them on the phone than on paper. Stacking order will change. 

Be aware that contacting clergy is a very delicate process. Their congregations may not know that they are looking to make a move. If you expose their search, you can harm their ongoing relationship with their parish. Most candidates will have a preferred address designated on their CDO Profile. 

After the phone interviews, the Search Committee will review their "short list" and select candidates to personally interview by visiting them in their present parish. Background checks should be done at this point. These candidates will then be invited to visit the parish and meet with the Search Committee and the Vestry. The parish pays to bring the candidates to them. It is wise to invite the clergy spouse, if there is one, to see the parish also. An interview is conducted by the Search Committee with the Vestry present.  Each of the interviewees meets with the Bishop.  The Bishop has the option to veto any candidate, and this is best done during the interview phase.

After the interviews, the Search Committee recommends the final candidates to the Vestry.  The Vestry elects the priest and they ask the Diocesan Bishop to issue a call.  The Priest and spouse may be invited to come for a week, to meet other church leaders and explore the community and if necessary to begin house hunting.

Finally the details of a Letter of Agreement are worked out between the Vestry and the priest and the next phase of parish life begins.

The above is only a general outline. When a rector resigns or retires, the Senior Warden should notify the Bishop immediately and also make contact with the Deployment Officer’s office at 561-656-0868. The Diocesan Deployment Officer will work with your Vestry and Search Committee closely and with more detail than is outlined above.