December 15, 2021
The Presidential Nominating Committee is grateful for the many expressions of support, encouragement, and prayer we received as we continue to advance our work. We covet your ongoing prayers for our process of identifying the person God is calling to serve as the next president of the Evangelical Covenant Church.
In response to the committee’s call for nominations, we received several hundred nominations from more than 600 pages of emails, nomination letters, and online nomination forms submitted by Covenanters around the globe. We read every letter and nomination, and the PNC is deeply grateful to each person who took the time to write a letter expressing thoughts, ideas, and concerns. And thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination.
The committee established the qualities and competencies a candidate should embody, a process informed by the many letters we received. The committee’s officers met with the Mosaic Commission in late October to ensure that the voices of the ethnic associations are included in this search process. Questions provided by the commission will be included in the interviews.
There were 41 different individuals nominated, representing a range of ethnicity, age, gender, and geographic region across the Covenant to move to the next stage. Twenty-four of those individuals declined to move forward in the process. Each of the remaining nominees provided detailed personal, spiritual, theological, and ministry information to the committee.
Seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Presidential Nominating Committee prayerfully reviewed those willing to be considered and is now moving forward with a smaller pool of candidates who will be invited to submit written responses to questions, a video sermon, and other materials, as well as to engage in an in-person interview in February 2022.
We have much work to do. Yet we remain confident in God’s faithfulness and your prayers in this holy work.
In God’s Service,
Stephen R. Dawson
Chair of Presidential Nominating Committee
