The Election Committee formed for supporting the Election of the XII Bishop of Springfield has been busy this last quarter; we have met monthly as a larger group and our subcommittees have also been meeting and working. We have four subcommittees: Listening, Profile, Nominations, and Communications.
Most of the work in the early stages belongs to the Listening Committee as they have researched and evaluated how best to survey the entire diocese regarding their hopes and preferences for traits and skills of our next bishop. After researching options, we have obtained the services of the University of Illinois, Springfield, and we are very close to releasing the survey to the Diocese. The Listening Committee is also figuring out how to do listening sessions for the Diocese; we hope to have a mixture of in-person and on-line opportunities for discussion and feedback that will also help to flesh out our hopes and expectations for our next bishop.
All of this information will feed into the Profile Committee, who are already at work on demographics, history, and getting churches stories in order to present a clear picture of who we are as a diocese, and as individual churches.
The Nominations Committee is also working to prepare a nomination form, and noting the supporting documents and other items we want from each nominee.
Our plan is to post the profile and nominations information on or before June 1st. And then we get responses!
A complete timeline is on the Diocesan website, along with other updates; with assistance from our Communications Committee, we send updates via the monthly Diocesan E-Newsletter, and have Hannah, the Diocesan Communications resource, post information on Facebook and Instagram. We also have information in the Current.
Our process for the election of a bishop is uniquely transparent, and we have a facilitator from the National Church, the Rev. Ron Clingenpeel, assisting us with our process, and also learning about how we do this. He has been very supportive of some of the unique things we have done, such as the technology survey. For example, we learned
❖ 8 churches (24%) do not have internet access.
❖ 9 churches (27%) do not have a computer.
❖ 8 churches (24%) do not have a printer available.
❖ 11 churches (33%) do not have Wi-Fi.
❖ 14 churches (42%) do not have mic/webcam for virtual meetings.
So we know what we are working with!
We are excited about the people we have working on this, and for the next steps.
Please pray regularly for our Election Process, and for the XII Bishop of Springfield!
Respectfully,
Mo Sherry Black (Chair)
Rod Matthews (Co-chair)
