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Transition News The Full Story

Search Committee co-chair Ted Carroll delivered this encouraging news at the worship service on August 14.

"Good morning,

Carle Mowell and I have had the privilege of co chairing a 12-person committee that has been working since early December in search of our next Senior Minister.  Today, I will give you an update on our progress and, because you took time in the middle of August to be with us this morning - and have also braved the rain to get here - we want you to be the first ones to hear the good news.  We believe we have found our next Senior Minister.

Before getting too excited, please realize that we don't know yet which one of the four candidates still under consideration will emerge as our recommended choice.  But we feel confident that the candidate we present you - probably sometime in the fall - will be selected from among these four finalists.

Of course, anything can happen and it's possible we may be misreading God's intentions, or at least God's timetable, but we have worked hard throughout this process to stay open to the spirit.  We have cast a very wide net and solicited interest from some of the world's best ministers.  To understand how we've narrowed the initial field of 60 applications, think college basketball tournament.  After reviewing their ministerial profiles and other introductory materials, the committee engaged in one hour interviews with a group you could call "the sweet sixteen". Then, we narrowed it down to the "elite eight", those whom we decided to visit in their home communities where a delegation got to hear them preach and conduct worship service.  And now, some of our "final four" candidates have already been invited to visit the Hartford area so that the whole committee can meet them personally and hear them preach in a neutral pulpit somewhere in CT.

We don't select senior ministers very often here at AHCC.  In fact, it was about 13 years ago when we selected Gary Miller and it was about 20 years earlier when we selected Jim Kidd.  So, everyone deserves a quick summary of how this process works.  Our highly diverse committee will prayerfully settle on a recommended candidate by consensus, bring that person to AHCC for a candidate sermon, and after the service is completed, we will hold a good old fashioned congregational meeting to have you vote our recommendation up or down.

You should know, however, that by the time we come to you with our recommendation, we believe we will know the candidate very well.  We will have studied his or her ministerial profile carefully and have compared it with the church profile you helped us create early in this process.  You told us at that time that you want us to find someone who is an inspiring preacher to help us grow spiritually, a compassionate minister who will comfort us during our moments of crisis, and a leader who will sustain and advance our arts, music, children's education and outreach ministries.  We are convinced that we have found as many as four people who will rise up to meet these lofty expectations.  Now, our job is to discern who is the very best of the very best.

I would like to say more, but we have all vowed to keep the details of this process confidential.  There are several reasons why we've made this commitment, but one reason is our desire to protect the candidates and their current congregations.  As we know ourselves, there is a strong, intimate bond that is forged between the Senior Minister and his/her congregation.  If a Senior Minister's congregation were to learn that he or she was under consideration for another job, it would put that person in a very awkward position.  Simply said, it is unfair for us to risk doing that to the good people who are simply trying to discern, as we are, what God is planning for them.

So, please respect our need to keep this process confidential.  Don't ask too many questions about where we've been this summer or where we're going over the next couple of months.  But do know that we are hard at work, staying open to the spirit and confident that we will bring you someone later this year who will believe, as we do, that our best days as a congregation lie ahead of us, not behind us. We will continue to provide you updates, including written reports in the Hill Church News.  Meanwhile, continue to pray for Carle and me and the extraordinary committee members Chuck Stohler and you chose to work with us: Sharon Barrett, Leslie Congdon, Scott Crespi, John Henry Decker, Dan Hansen, Tim Hollister, Ann Lankford, Andrea Livingstone, Tom Tresselt and Wanda Williams McCormack.  And, while you're at it, please add a prayer of thanks for our families who have sacrificed much in support of our work and who, if they're here today, now know as much as you do about what we've been doing these past nine months.

Thank you, and stay tuned!

Ted Carroll, Search Committee co-chair"