Pastor's Note | Saturday, November 1st

Daylight Savings Time ends November 2nd - be sure to set your clock back one hour on Saturday night!

Speaking of Daylight Savings Time (DST), you may know that American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin is often credited with being the inventor of DST, even though it was never put into practice in his lifetime. In his 1784 essay "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light," he proposed the idea, although a little jokingly, to economize the use of candles by getting people out of bed earlier in the morning, making use of the natural morning light instead.

Did you know that the plan was not formally adopted in the U.S. until 1918? An Act to Preserve Daylight and Provide Standard Time for the United States was enacted on March 19, 1918. It both established standard time zones and set summer DST to begin on March 31, 1918.

Sometimes plans are made but not enacted for quite some time.

Our Session has planned to begin a process for a pastoral transition. Unlike enacting DST, however, the Session has enacted the plan which is to consider Pastor Curtis to serve as the next Pastor/Head of Staff for Good Shepherd.

In late September, when we transitioned into our new denominational home in ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians, the Session received guidance from ECO’s Pastoral Ministry Team (PMT) regarding how to conduct a search process. This process called for the formation of a Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC) comprised of congregation members that would evaluate a number of candidates.

However, when our PMT liaison realized we are in a unique position of already having identified our top candidate - Curtis - he and the PMT Chair provided different guidance which is that the Session should:

1. Serve as the PNC
2. Formally interview Curtis and do the "vetting" of him using the guidelines from the ECO PMT
3. Present Curtis to the congregation (assuming the vetting process warrants doing so) for the congregation’s vote of affirmation and call to Curtis to serve as the next Pastor/Head of Staff
4. If for some reason, there is a different outcome from this process and Curtis is not affirmed/called, the Session would then begin the process defined in the PMT Manual for an open search for the next Pastor/Head of Staff for Good Shepherd.

Yes, this is a different process than described earlier but, as you can see, the newly-prescribed process is consistent with our situation. Also, remember that a call to the next Pastor/Head of Staff is a call made by the congregation. You will be asked to vote to affirm and call this person.

If you would like to discuss this process with me or if you have questions about it let me know. I would be happy to talk with you further. Please continue to lift this up in prayer, asking for God’s guidance and for clarity as we move forward into the future God has for Good Shepherd.

Pastor Jim