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St.
Mark's Episcopal Church Join us for Worship, Fellowship, and Service |
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St. Mark's Discernment Process Welcome! This is a very exciting time for St.
Mark's as we explore our visions for the future and search for a new
rector. We invite the enthusiasm and support of all of you--members of
the parish, guests at our worship, and visitors to our web site--as we
discern God's path for us. Our Discernment Prayer Dear Lord, Our Committee
Our Discernment committee was formed in the fall of 2008 to provide leadership for the parish in self study as we undertake the various steps in calling a new Rector for our parish. Members of the parish who are serving are Doug Cutchin, Vicki Dawson, Sarah Ferguson, Rudy Landry, Fred Marshall, Gordon McPhail, Sue Nelson, Martha Reinhardt and Pat Slater, with Ricia Hyde and Rick MacKenzie as co-chairs. St. Mark's is in the discernment process under the guidance of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine. Our consultant is the Rev. Mary Ann Taylor, a retired priest of the diocese and associate pastor at St. John's in Bangor, Maine. Questions about the search may be addressed to Canon Vicki Wiederkehr, Deployment Officer at 207-772-1953, Extension 23 or vwiederk@episcopalmaine.org. Process Timeline
Our committee has developed a general timeline for our discernment process. Please click Timeline to view. What's Happening - Updates FALL '09: We are about halfway through the discernment process. We have collated all the results from the surveys and from the cottage meetings, and we are ready to analyze these results. We are also writing the profile. In the meantime, the entire parish is poised to work on a parish initiative we have named "Strengthening the Call". We have discovered that we need to work on congregational development in order to have the resources to support a new priest, and, with the help of the diocese, we are builiding on our strengths, while we work to increase our membership and train more leaders. SPRING '09: The Discernment Committee started meeting regularly the beginning of February, 2009, and has met on a biweekly basis since. The development of the Parish Survey has been completed by the Committee and plans are in place to use this survey and “Cottage Meetings” for information gathering. As part of the Parish’s self study, we will be holding a series of informal, small group meetings that will be held at various times and places throughout the month of May to allow the Parish to verbalize their thoughts and visions for St. Mark’s. The feedback from these Cottage Meetings and the completed surveys will be the basis for the Parish Profile that the Discernment Committee will be developing over the next several months in preparation for the receipt of the names of candidates. SUMMER '09:The Discernment Committee continues to work with enthusiasm through the heart of the summer. We have divided into two subcommittees. One is working on summarizing the discussions from the cottage meetings and collating the data from the surveys. We have had very strong responses from the parish in both cases, so the information we have gathered is very rich and we appreciate the support of the parish in our self-study. The other sub-committee is beginning to look at writing the profile. This document will reflect the opinions of the membership as expressed in the surveys and the cottage meetings, but there is much more that goes into it. We have many good examplar profiles to work from and some creative wordsmiths on the committee. We are excited to tell the story of St. Mark's and our vision for the future. St.
Mark's Episcopal Church
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