One in a series of introductions to the subcommittees of the Search Committee
Hello, we’re the Bishop Nominations and Recruitment Subcommittee.
Chair: the Rev. Jeff Thornberg of Church of Our Saviour, San Gabriel, and members Heyden Morales of St. John’s Cathedral, the Rev. Elizabeth Molitors of Trinity, Santa Barbara, and the Rev. Joseph Oloimooja of Holy Faith, Inglewood.
What does your subcommittee do?
Our charge is to encourage and ensure that qualified candidates both from our diocese and from across the wider church are included in this process. We invite priests and bishops in good standing from across the Anglican Communion to participate in our search.
We especially want to identify and encourage candidates from populations and demographics who might otherwise hold back from participation, or who have historically been underrepresented in leadership positions in the Church.
Tell us some of the ways you plan to reach out to potential candidates.
We will advertise on Episcopal News Service‘s daily “Featured Jobs and Calls,” which we know is very well read. We distributed postcards at our recent Clergy Conference for our clergy to share with their colleagues near and far. We’ll post on appropriate Facebook and Instagram pages. We’re contacting seminary deans and leaders of ethnic ministries in The Episcopal Church.
We will bring our search to the attention of bishops in The Episcopal Church’s Province VIII (that’s our province, much of the continental American West plus Alaska, Hawaii, and Taiwan) and Province IX (Latin America and the Caribbean) as well as the entire House of Bishops. We’ll contact individuals we know who may be called to the episcopate. And we’ll pursue any and all avenues that present themselves to encourage good candidates to be a part of this discernment.
What are you doing to ensure that we have a diverse candidate pool?
Working with the DEI Subcommittee, we are reaching out to historically underrepresented groups. Our efforts will include presence at events and within ministries that represent these communities and whose members may know potential candidates across the wider church. We are open to your suggestions as we seek to create a pool of candidates that is broad and deep.
What can we do if there’s someone we’d like to see as a candidate?
You can submit a nomination, or you can encourage that person to apply directly. The deadline is June 27. We suggest you send the person a link to the profile when it is posted the first week of June and encourage your candidate to read it and see if they feel a call.
Why is it important to reach out to potential candidates? Won’t they automatically apply?
We’ve learned that the largest and most diverse candidate pools are developed when a Search Committee intentionally seeks out potential candidates and doesn’t just wait to see who applies. Many people who end up on the final slate say that they wouldn’t have thought to apply until somebody called them and said, “I think you ought to consider this.”