Dear friends,

In this letter, the Bishop Search Committee is pleased to share a new invitation for your participation in this process of discerning candidates to be our next bishop. Please also find a few reminders at the end. We hope you will read through to the end of this letter and reach out with any questions you may have!

Update
As of today, we have completed three of our listening sessions including one at Trinity, Lebanon, one online for all, and our conversation with diocesan youth. Throughout the rest of January eleven more sessions are planned so please do join us! It has been a joy and honor to hear from you as we continue this discernment process toward the election of the ninth diocesan bishop of The Diocese of West Missouri. Your stories and ministries have inspired us and we can’t wait to hear more! You can find the full schedule below in this email and we hope you can join one that is close to you. Remember, too, that the Zoom-based sessions require pre-registration so that the appropriate information to join the meeting can be sent to you.

Survey
In addition to these listening sessions, the Bishop Search Committee invites you to fill out this survey. The survey asks different questions than the listening sessions. The fullest way to participate in the feedback portion of this process is to do both: to attend a listening session and to fill out the survey. This survey will help us to capture some demographic data about our diocese, to reach more people and to hear their thoughts and ideas, and will contribute a good deal of information to our profile. The survey remains open until Saturday, February 3 but please fill it out at your earliest convenience. 

We know that some in our diocese have limited access to an online-based survey and meetings. We have also heard stories of some of our worship communities who have planned “survey parties” or other fun gatherings at which people can receive support in participating in this process that they may need. Laptops and food and fellowship after worship might be a great way for your community to help create access to this process so we hope you will consider hosting one such event if your community may need it. Please reach out to us as the Bishop Search Committee if we can provide support for this in any way. We are committed to hearing from all of the people of The Diocese of West Missouri!

Reminders
Mark your calendars to join us for a listening session. Your participation is essential to this work!

• Click here for the full schedule. Please print this, if needed, for your community!
• Fill out the survey
• Click here to see the questions that will center our conversations at these sessions
• Click here to register for the remaining Zoom-based sessions (clergy on January 16 & everyone on January 30)

Thank you for continuing to pray for this process as we all seek to be led by the Holy Spirit in the work that we share at this moment in our common life.

Please note: The bishop search listening session scheduled for tomorrow, January 10 at 6:00 p.m. in Savannah will proceed as scheduled.