Call Process 2021

Installation of a new Pastor

You are cordially invited to attend the Rite of Installation of Rev. Francis Samba Balangarr Rigobert as Pastor at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church,153 Nott Terrace, Schenectady, NY at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist
on Saturday, July 10, 2021, 9:30 AM

Bishop Derek G. Lecakes, Installer
Pastors and Deacons are encouraged to process; the color is green.

There will be a light reception for Pastor Francis and his family in the Parish Hall following the Eucharistic Celebration 11-12:30 PM.

Please RSVP by June 25, 2021 to Janet Bendt at 518-374-1811X204

Guests are invited to bring a canned food item for the food basket to be brought at offertory. These gifts will be given to Street Soldiers Ministry.

Interim Pastor

We are very happy to let you know that Pastor Charles (Chip) Froehlich is serving as Zion's Interim Pastor beginning on January 31. His time with us may be extended if needed. He will assist us in the Call Process, worship, visitation, Sunday School and Formation (First Communion and Confirmation Classes). He also brings extensive experience in fiance, outreach, senior ministry and youth.

Call Process & Call Committee

We invited you to get involved!

Serving on the Committee are: Lynn Manning, chair; Ted Bieling, Demi Corina, Greg Cleveland, Tom Ekstrom,
Kathy Heap, Marie LaBrie, David Littlecook, Marcy Steiner, Michelle Wildgrube. If you have any questions please
don’t hesitate to reach out at president@zion.lc.

Executive Summary of Zion's Congrational Survey

Thank you to the more than 100 people who completed the survey in Spring 2020! Below is the summary of the results:

Survey Results

January 2021 Update

Our call process for a new Pastor at Zion has been moving along well over the past month. You may recall from our December update that Bishop Lecakes presented six potential pastoral candidates to us, with the possibility of two more pastors being added for our consideration. We did, indeed, receive information on those two pastors and added them to our candidate pool.

Call Committee Chair, Lynn Manning, made individual calls to these pastors and discussed specific questions our committee had identified, based on the information they each provided in their Pastor’s Self-Evaluation Tool (SET). Following these calls, the resulting additional information was reviewed with the call committee and we decided to move five of the eight candidates to the next stage of video interviews. It is important to note that all the Pastors were impressive, candid, articulate and clearly faith-filled. Our call committee identified those that we feel are closest to Zion’s current and future leadership needs.

With the intention of not overwhelming candidates with too many interviewers in a single call, we divided our call committee into a 1st interview subcommittee and a follow-up interview subcommittee. Lynn is currently arranging interview times with the five identified pastors, and we anticipate these will be completed by the end of January. The initial one-on-one conversations were extraordinarily positive with each of the Pastors being welcoming, enthusiastic and quite interested in the video conference and learning more about our Zion opportunity.

The call committee also spent time recently developing and honing interview questions to help us make the best use of everyone’s time on the upcoming calls, and learning as much as we can about these pastors. We are excited to “meet” them virtually this month!

We anticipate February will include work for the call committee to identify which candidate(s) we believe have the best match with Zion and our needs based on the January interviews, planning for next round interviews, and planning how best to share all the wonderful things about Zion and our congregation and community during these pandemic times when safe, in-person visits are not easy or potentially even possible. We will continue to keep you informed as this all moves ahead.

We need your help, too! Let us remember the Bishop’s prayer in which he asked the Lord to help all of us at Zion to work together prayerfully and intentionally to identify the pastor that God has already chosen for us. Pastor Chip provides the following prayer for all of us to include as part of our daily prayers:

O Gracious Father, You led Your holy apostles to ordain pastors for the proclamation of Your Word and the faithful administration of the Sacraments of the church. Grant to this congregation the guidance of the Holy Spirit to choose a suitable pastor to lead the ministry according to Your will for the blessing of Your Church in this place; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen

Best,

Lynn