Our New Rector!

It is with great joy that we announce the calling of Reverend Michael Hodges to be the 15th Rector of Christ Church Andover. After 16 months, 25 nationwide candidates, fifty+ meetings, 2,500 man hours, on schedule and under budget, the Search Committee unanimously voted to recommend Rev. Hodges to the vestry. At their May 13th, 2014 meeting the Vestry voted unanimously to call Michael to Christ Church. Michael has accepted and Bishop Tom Shaw has approved our call.

Rev. Hodges comes to us from St. Paul's of Dedham, MA and brings a deep and mature faith in Christ, a fantastic sense of humor, a talent for collaboration, a gift for preaching, a love of music, conflict resolution skills, experience with adult and youth formation, and a love for parish ministry. Through his work both in parish ministry and with the diocese, Michael also brings solid financial experience.

Michael and his wife Laurie have two children. Emma has just completed her freshman year at Commonwealth Honors College at UMass, Amherst and Sally is finishing 5th grade. She will enter Doherty Middle School in the fall. Laurie is a cardiac-surgical ICU nurse and looks forward to being an active member of Christ Church.

The Hodges family plans to move into the Rectory in July, and following an annual family vacation, Rev. Hodges first Sunday with us will be August 17th.

The Search Committee would like to express its profound gratitude for the prayers and support we have received from the parish. This has been a life changing experience for every member of the committee, not only have we grown closer to each other but we have also come to know Christ Church in a deeper and more meaningful way. It has been a tremendous privilege to serve as your Search Committee and words cannot express how excited we are for the future.

Blessings,
Alison Novello
Jayne Miller
Michael Marcinelli
Jay Donovan
Ann Lamontagne
Don DeLollis
Rosalyn Wood
Ben Hunt
Jackie Salvesen
Emily McDowell
Judy Johnson
Diane Huntress
Jane Roberts
Chris Wagner

News from the Search Committee

The Search Committee at a recent meeting discussing one of the candidates.

During the month of January the Search Committee has been conducting Skype interviews with all of the candidates who made our long list. After we receiving applications from 25 candidates, the Search Committee decided to move forward with the candidacies of 11 applicants. One candidate who made our long list withdrew their name from consideration after accepting a call at another parish. It is the goal of the committee to complete all of the the preliminary interviews by the end of January.

Once Skype interviews with all of the candidates on our long list are completed, the committee will then narrow our list further to approximately 5-7 candidates. It is at this point that we will be conducting visits to the candidates current parishes. Once the parish visits are completed, the Search Committee will have our "short list" of candidates, this typically consists of 3-4 candidates. All of the candidates on our short list will have an Oxford Document Background Check conducted, they will also visit with the committee at Christ Church as well as meeting with the Bishop.

The Search Committee is so grateful for the continued support and prayers of the parish. While every member of the committee would agree that this has been hard work we would also agree wholeheartedly that it has been incredibly fulfilling work and the encouragement and support you have given us has sustained every member of the committee since we began this work nearly 11 months ago. We ask that you continue to pray for both the Search Committee and the candidates as we enter this deeper discernment to seek where God is calling our parish. As always if you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to speak to one of us on a Sunday morning or email us at search@christchurchandover.org.

Blessings,
 Christ Church Rector Search Committee

The Next Steps

The Search Committee has been hard at work this fall looking for Christ Church’s next Rector. The committee received names of potential Rector candidates from October 1 through November 30. The committee carefully reviewed each application as we received them, meeting weekly during this phase to review all the applications. After the period for reviewing names ended on November 30, the committee prayerfully considered the candidates as we formed our long list.

After submitting the names on our long list to the Diocese in early December, the Search Committee approved the candidates on our long list at our meeting on December 15. We are now in the process of contacting those who made our long list to set up phone and Skype interviews that will take place throughout the month of January and into the first week of February. We are also informing those who did not make our long list that we will not be moving forward with their candidacies.

As mentioned above, the phone and Skype interviews will take place throughout the month of January and the beginning of February. The Search Committee will be meeting multiple days a week during this time to conduct the interviews in a timely fashion. Once the committee completes the phone and Skype interviews we will narrow our list further and prepare for visits to the candidates home parishes.

As always, we are so grateful for the prayers and support of all of you. The committee has truly enjoyed this process and we have formed some wonderful bonds as a committee over these past 9 months. As we prepare for the next part of this process, the Search Committee will be taking a short break as we enter the Christmas season, we will be meeting again on January 5th. If you have any questions or concerns about the process you can always find one of us in church on Sundays or email us at search@christchurchandover.org. Please continue to keep the entire committee in your prayers as we move to this next important phase of the process.

Merry Christmas!

Receiving Names!!

It has been a little while since we last gave you an update on the blog, but during that time your Search Committee has been working very hard over the summer! That hard work has lead us to where we are today, where we can officially announce that we are now receiving names of candidates for the Rector position. Before we outline what that process will look like going forward we wanted to give you a brief synopsis of our work over the summer months.

During the summer months the Search Committee went through the results of the online survey and Parish Open Forums in great detail. We hung the comments from the forums up in the Parish Hall during July and August and we also made hard copies of the online survey available in the parlor. The Search Committee used that information to help create our Parish Profile which will be viewed by every potential applicant interested in the Rector position. The Parish Profile is complete and has been approved by the Vestry, it can be found on the Christ Church website by clicking on the Search For A New Rector tab or by clicking this link. 

To accompany the Parish Profile we also made a video that highlights you, the parishioners, and all that you do for our community. You can view the video on the Christ Church website and also by going to this link. 

The committee has also completed the Ministry Portfolio, which is essentially the job description for the Rector position. The Ministry Portfolio will be posted on the national Office of Transition Ministry (OTM) website, advertising the position nationwide.

As we move forward into receiving names, the Search Committee will begin to meet weekly to review applications as we receive them. We expect to receive names for approximately 6-8 weeks. The communications sub-committee is drafting the written interview questions that will be sent to prospective candidates and the committee as a whole is organizing around the tasks that will need to be accomplished during this phase.

The Search Committee remains committed to an open and transparent process. We will continue to share weekly updates through the e-Prophet and Sunday Prophet as well as updates to this blog. We are committed to sharing as much information with the congregation as possible but please keep in mind that any information with respect to potential candidates is strictly confidential and cannot be shared by members of the committee.

We are extremely grateful for the support that you have given us as we have worked through this process. Your prayers have energized us as we do the work to find our next Rector. We will need your continued prayers more than ever as we move into this crucial phase of our work.

We are always happy to answer any questions you may have, you can speak to anyone of us before or after the services on Sunday or send an email to search@christchurchandover.org and we will respond to you as soon as possible.

Thank you again for the tremendous support you have given us and please continue to keep us in your prayers as we begin this exciting phase.

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who participated in Rector Search Open Forums and who took the online survey! We had over 200 responses to the online survey and approximately 60 people attended one of our open forum sessions. We are extremely grateful that so many of you took part in this process, your input will be crucial as we begin to move to the next phase of the search process.

During our meeting on July 8th, we went over in detail the results of the survey and the open forums. You will notice on Sunday that all of the comments from the five open forum sessions will be posted up in the Parish Hall so that everyone can see what was talked about at these forums. These will be up for a few weeks so stop on by the Parish Hall before or after our services on Sunday! In the coming weeks we will also make available the results of the online survey to the entire parish.

 As we near the end of the Self-Study phase of the search process our focus now is on completing the parish profile. The parish profile describes our history, personality, mission, and ministry, it highlights our uniqueness as well as outlines the passions and gifts that we seek in our next rector. Once the parish profile is completed it will be posted on the Christ Church website and the Diocesan website.

As we continue our work if you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to speak to one of us or email us at search@christchurchandover.org. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we move forward in our search.

Time is running out!

Have you taken the Rector Search Survey yet? There are still a few days left to take it if you have not already done so. Please visit the Christ Church  homepage and click the link to take the survey, the survey is open until June 1st. It is so important for the Search Committee to hear from the entire parish as we go through this discerning phase of the search process.


The first of our Parish Open Forums will be on this Sunday, June 2nd at 9:00 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. The 9:00 a.m. Open Forum will take place in the Parish Hall while the 11:30 a.m. Open Forum will take place in the sanctuary after the 10:00 a.m. service. As you prepare to come to one of these forums please prayerfully consider the questions below that we will discuss at the Open Forums:

- What characteristics of our worship life, educational programs and Christian fellowship are most important to you?

- What characteristics of our parish life do you cherish most? (and so hope will remain stable when we call a new Rector?)

- Are there characteristics of our parish that you hope will change or grow under the leadership of a new rector?

- What conditions in our community, the church, and the world are most important as we develop our mission and ministry for the next decade?

- What qualities should the Search Committee look for, as they interview Rector candidates?

Please plan on coming to one of the Parish Open Forums that we have planned throughout the month of June.  These forums are an opportunity for parishioners to engage in a deeper conversation with members of the Search Committee about our Christ Church community. It is critical to our work that you share your voice with us. Everyone in our parish has wisdom and insight that will help the Search Committee as we seek the right person who will lead our community. The dates for the rest of our Parish Open Forums are:

Wednesday, June 5th- 7:30 a.m. in the Parish Hall
Monday, June 10th- 7:00 p.m. in the Parish Hall
Sunday, June 23rd- 11:30 a.m. in the Parish Hall

Please keep the members of the Search Committee in your prayers as we continue the work of searching for our new Rector.

Search Open Forums and Parish Wide Survey

As part of the Self-Study, it is the job of the Search Committee to reflect on the wants and needs of the parish. To help us in this task we will be holding five Search Open Forums to be held on the dates listed at the bottom of this post. These forums will be an opportunity for parishioners to tell members of the search committee what they feel our strengths are, what challenges we face, where we need to grow or change, and the type of qualities they would like us to look for in our next Rector. It is critically important that we hear from all voices within the parish and so we hope you will be able to attend one of these open forums.

The Search Committee is also conducting a parish-wide survey that will go until June 1st so that everyone in the parish has an opportunity to complete the survey. The survey should take about 15 minutes to complete and can be done by clicking the link below. Hard copies will also be made available to anyone who does not have access to a computer. We are aiming for 100 percent participation from the parish so please complete our survey!

Finally, open communication with the parish is a top priority of every member on the Search Committee. If you have any questions or concerns about the search process we encourage you to email us at search@christchurchandover.org and a member of the committee will respond to you. Also don't hesitate to find one of us either before church or after the service on Sundays to talk about how the process is going. Our pictures will soon be up in the Parish Hall so we will be easy to spot! Please continue to keep the members of the committee in your prayers as we move forward in this process.

Christ Church Rector Search Survey:
Click here to take our survey.


Search Open Forum Dates & Locations:

June 2nd- 9:00 a.m. in the Parish Hall and 11:30 a.m. in the Sanctuary
June 5th- 7:30 a.m. in the Parish Hall
June 10th- 7:00 p.m. in the Parish Hall
June 23rd- 11:30 a.m. in the Parish Hall