Our Call Committee is meeting with three candidates by the end of June who have been recommended to us by our Southern Ohio Synod Office. Each interview with the candidate includes a tour of Reynoldsburg and possibly Columbus depending on their familiarity with this area. They tour the church and the parsonage that they will be expected to live in if they accept the call. They have dinner with about half of our Call Committee and then after dinner, they are formally interviewed by the entire committee for about 90 minutes. Pastor Karl leads the tour of the church and sits in on the interview. Pastor Karl has a private interview with the candidate over breakfast, the morning after the interview.

After these interviews are complete, the Call Committee will meet to determine what to do next. They have three options. They can ask to see one or all of the candidates again for a second interview. They can recommend one of the candidates to the Church Council without a second interview. Or, they can discern that none of the candidates are a good match for Messiah. If this happens, then we begin again with the Southern Ohio Synod, requesting new candidates.

If a candidate is recommended by our Call Committee, they become our primary candidate. The Church Council interviews the primary candidate and discusses compensation for the first time. Messiah is committed to paying the Synod suggested guideline for a pastor, the same as Pastor Karl is paid. After this interview, the primary candidate and the church council discern whether their gifts and our needs are a good fit. If both believe they are, then the Church Council will send a letter to the congregation calling for a congregational meeting to vote to extend to a call for associate pastor to our primary candidate. The name of the candidate is kept confidential until this time.

We will invite the candidate to come on that Sunday morning to meet the congregation at all of our morning services. The congregational meeting will occur following the 11:00 Service and will be run by a staff member of the Southern Ohio Synod. If any of the three candidates that we are meeting with currently are good fits, it is estimated we could extend a call to one of them by the first of August at the earliest. If you have any questions or concerns about this process, do not hesitate to contact any member of our Call Committee or Pastor Karl.  The Call Committee is led by Janeen Smith-Hughes, and includes Bob Rabe, Nancy Hoffman, Carol Kohs, Jason Messick, Erin Wotja, Ashley Jutte and Mike Sneed.