[Seekers Home Page] [Write us] [Core Documents] [Report of the Staff Needs Discernment Group]

Findings and Recommendations of the Team Needs Discernment Group

Revised and Accepted by Stewards

September 8, 2002

I. Background

In 1976, Seekers Church was founded by the call of Fred Taylor and Sonya Dyer on a premise, slightly different from that of Church of the Saviour, that the vision and authority, form and shape of the community would emerge from the members of the community themselves, rather than from a single leader. Over the years since then, the community has increasingly sought ways to model the non-hierarchical leadership expressed in that founding concept. Shared leadership and implementation of servanthood are two primary values that undergird such modeling. Thus, leadership and authority in Seekers Church come from and are encouraged from a variety of sources: the Stewards, mission groups, ad hoc groups undertaking specific tasks as well as individuals who are granted authority to exercise their gifts on behalf of the community in particular circumstances. Leadership in Seekers Church might be described as leadership from the whole.

Nonetheless, the community has, for many years, recognized that not all nurturing of community life can happen on a volunteer basis. Since1989, we have paid a team of two, three or four individuals to provide, in the words of Bob Bayer, "additional, visible leadership. . . to develop and nurture the life of the Seekers Community out of its original call."

In the fall of 2001, in light of the departure a year earlier of Sonya Dyer, of our impending move to our own building at Carroll Street, and of the general state of the life of the community, the Stewards commissioned a group to discern freshly the community's need for paid staff. At about the same time, Jeanne Marcus expressed to the Stewards her sense of call to be a part of the team. Jeanne's coming forward represented something new for Seekers with respect to its paid staff team: an individual approaching the community with a call to the team rather than the community sounding a call to the team based on felt need. Although the full ramifications of this approach are not yet clear, it should be acknowledged as a somewhat new development in our understanding of leadership. Currently, Seekers pays for a total of 4 work days a week, from Peter Bankson, Kate Cudlipp and Jeanne Marcus.

Following are the recommendations of the Team Needs Discernment Group concerning a leadership team for Seekers Church. These recommendations grew out of discussions that are summarized in the attached Report of the Team Needs Discernment Group.

II. Recommendations

            A. The team should be referred to as the Servant Leadership Team. While we are all called to servant leadership, the Servant Leadership Team is called to specific service within and on behalf of Seekers, as described in the following paragraphs.

            B. Qualities of those called to the Servant Leadership Team. Individuals who are called to the Servant Leadership Team embody Seekers values, as described in the attached Report of the Team Needs Discernment Group; have the ability to cultivate those values in others, cultivate leadership from the whole, empower all Seekers, understand and acknowledge that authority granted is "in trust" for the whole community; have a willingness to exercise initiating power, but not ultimate control;  hold the vision for the community, recognizing that they share holding the vision with all Stewards  rather than holding it alone. These generalist concerns for the community were described in the 1993 "Call to Leadership of the Whole" by the following list of qualities to be embodied by members of the Servant Leadership Team. Of these, each member should embody the following qualities:

            • Listening and enabling

            • Including in community life persons of all ages and abilities

            • Being grounded in a sense of mission

            • Being centered

            • Facilitating

            • Having a mature sense of sexuality and being comfortable operating in a community that values the leadership of men and women

      • Holding up or working with issues of marginalized people in our society [added by Stewards at the July, 2002 meeting]

And the Team as a whole should share among its members the following qualities:

            • Evangelizing

            • Pastoring

            • Administering, including managing a physical plant

            • Being a visionary/prophet

            • Being a visible leader

            • Being a Biblical/theological student

In addition to embodying Seekers' values and having the above-described qualities, members of the Servant Leadership Team should embody an authentic spiritual authority that is recognized by the whole community and that elicits respectful listening but does not claim power over others. They should know the "dance steps" relative to different points of authority within the community: when to step forward to encourage, when to step back to let new growth blossom, when to fill a void and when to let the void be.

Members of the Servant Leadership Team should be Stewards and at least one member of the team should be licensed to perform sacraments such as weddings. An individual who is not now a Steward but who is expecting to become one within a short period of time could be considered and could join the team after becoming a Steward.

            C. Size of the team: The Servant Leadership Team should consist of between 3 and 5 people who, among themselves, are available to address emergent needs in the community 7 days a week.

            D. Compensation:  We recommend use of the term stipend for the compensation we provide, to acknowledge both that the dollar amount is less than generous and that the job entails many more hours than are nominally compensated. For budgetary purposes, we recommend that the total number of Servant Leadership Team work days/week be no more than 7 at the outset, with the understanding that emergent needs of the community, especially after we are settled in Carroll Street, could warrant an increase in Servant Leadership Team time. Compensation differentials should be based on experience on the Servant Leadership team as well as the amount of time the individual is willing to offer to the community. We encourage applicants to be clear about the time they are able to commit to this position.

We tried to separate the connection between financial compensation and time, but were unable to do so due to the complexity of the issue. We also recommend that the community as a whole work with money issues, including the idea of compensation being related to need, and revisit the question of paid leadership in two years.

            E. Length of term: The Servant Leadership Team should serve in staggered three year terms, the length of the first terms to be chosen by lot. At the end of each year, the team member(s) whose term is up will engage in a discernment process, similar to Seekers recommitment process, with their spiritual director as to their own sense of ongoing call. They will also enter into a discernment with the Servant Leadership Liaison Group as to whether their service on the Team continues to meet the community's needs, and the Liaison Group will make a recommendation to Stewards based on this discernment process.

            F. Selection process: Stewards should issue an Invitation to the Servant Leadership Team, inviting applicants to write a letter addressing why they are called to the team and their strengths and weaknesses with respect to the qualities identified in section B, above. Applicants should be interviewed by a Search team comprised of both Stewards and members; the Search team would make recommendations to Stewards at the November meeting. The Search team should seek a reasonable balance of gender representation on the Servant Leadership Team.

In addition to this selection process, Stewards should acknowledge the validity of a process whereby persons come forward out of their own sense of call, regardless of whether a formal invitation to the team is outstanding. In such a case, the Servant Leadership Liaison Group will work with the person and make a recommendation to Stewards.

Concerning the current team, we recommend that Peter and Kate reflect on this report and these recommendations and engage in the discernment process described in the Length of Term section above. Stewards agreed that Jeanne's appointment would be for one year or until the selection process was completed.