"What I Did Last Summer, Several Months Before and All the Ones In Between."

From October, 2008 until April, 2009 I co-chaired the Pastor Nominating Committee of my church. Seven other people and I spent an evening together usually every week praying, discussing and listening. Then we telephoned and emailed each other in between. When we weren't praying. In all my writing and updates to the church about this process, I mentioned that this was the most profound spiritual journey I had been on until this point. I've mentioned often in church about how weak my faith is. For the first time in my 52 years on Earth, I felt it strengthen just a little as we went through this process.

We read about 150 Personal Information Forms (PIFs we called them) from Pastors who were matched with us and who read our Church Information Form (CIF) and believed it was worth taking a chance applying for the job. Most were way off-base. Some were pretty close. Only a few could have led our congregation. We read the PIFs, discussed them, dismissed them, pursued them. We held telephone interviews, listening while people who felt called by God to become ministers of God's Word told us about their extraordinary journeys of faith.

We continued this process until we had four people that we wanted to meet in person. Four people who we believed were of a similar mind and heart to our church. And so the in-person conversations began. Our first candidate removed herself from the running some time after our meeting. The second just didn't match. That left us with 2 close contenders. That's when the hardest work began.

They both had proven records in social justice, multiculturalism, community leadership, pastoral care, fundraising, written and oral communication, for God's sake. And we had to choose one of them. And after a couple more lengthy, hard-questioning interviews and two more weeks of deliberation and discernment, we nominated a Pastor.

After we announced the candidate to Session, our governing body, some members began a campaign to keep our candidate from becoming Pastor of our church. I believe the Holy Spirit was in our decision. I never have claimed anything like that in my life. The Holy Spirt. Who knew? And people were fighting our decision.

"Don't take it personally, Larry," I was advised. This work was nothing if not personal. I put myself, as did the others, into this work for a year-and-a-half. In doing this work I believe I moved a tiny bit closer to understanding something about God. Something I never felt before. And here were people with whom I break bread and pray and sing, working against me and those who made this journey with me. "With all due respect to the members of the Pastor Nominating Committee," they said. If that was all the respect we were due, we must have done a pretty disrespectful job. But we didn't.

The leaders of the church scrambled to continue the work and balance the drama and promote conversation and understanding. The campaigners continued the fight, trying to turn the candidate's accomplishments into failings. And in the end, a majority of the church voted in favor of the candidate.

But, not enough to invite him to become our Pastor. And so, with a new committee, the process begins again. But this time from a different place. A place where the church has shown some of its truth. A place where some want to explore that truth and see how it compares to what we believed was the truth. And a place where some would rather leave things as they were.

I've been told and I believe that the Holy Spirit was at work in all this. That God is found in the pain, anger, disappointment and sadness I've been feeling since April. I believe and have faith in God, made manifest in Jesus Christ and sent to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And now my own faith journey has a new obstacle as I regain my faith in humankind.