The Episcopal Church of the Messiah joyfully announces that it has called the Rev. Timothy H. Grayson as its next Rector.

On November 15th, 2008, the Vestry met with the newly-appointed Self-Study and Discernment Committees for a Saturday morning retreat to kick off the search for Messiah’s next Rector. A long and prayerful, Spirit-led process ensued. The Self-Study Committee took a good hard look at Messiah, conducting three workshops and sending a survey to all communicants, and crafted a detailed Parish Profile, which was accepted by the Vestry on May 19th, 2009. The Self-Study and Discernment Committees met jointly on July 2nd to break bread, reflect on the process to date and to "pass the baton" from the Self-Study to the Discernment stage of Messiah's Rector Search.

The Discernment Committee then worked hard to whittle down an initial list of ninety clergy to a short list of three through prayer, careful consultation, telephone interviews, and face-to-face visits. Each clergyperson on the initial list, pooled from names received both directly and from the National Church, was sent a letter requesting a resume, letter of application, profile, as well as a request for a response to three questions. Twenty-one candidates responded. The team carefully reviewed each candidate's response, met, and after prayer, shortened the list to fourteen candidates, and then to five. They conducted telephone interviews with the five; then met again to choose their top three candidates. The group then visited these three people -- in Ohio and Maryland -- to hear them preach, see their churches, and interview them in person. At the end of their traveling, the team especially asked the congregation for their prayers, and when they met, they unanimously voted for the Rev. Timothy H. Grayson as their choice to present to the Vestry as the Episcopal Church of the Messiah's next Rector.

The Rev. Timothy H. Grayson and a newly-baptized member of God's family

at St. James' Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square

Finally, one year after that initial retreat day, the Discernment Committee invited Tim+ to visit Messiah to see the building and to meet with a small group of church leaders during a Saturday brunch. On Tuesday, November 17th, 2009, the Vestry met their Candidate and then acted upon the Committee’s recommendation by calling Tim+ to be our next Rector, a call that he accepted “with great joy.”

We are extremely grateful for Tim+ and for the hard, hard work of everyone on the Self-Study and Discernment Committees. They have gone about their work with faithfulness of the Holy Spirit’s leadership and with a deep commitment to fairness, honesty and integrity. For more information about Tim+, please click here.

The Spirit has led us to Tim+, and he to us.

Thanks be to God!

Messiah's Discernment Committee: Cathy Barrow, Mike Dowd, Bryan Gardiner, Margaret Goode, Karen Hoffman, and Anne Vanneman

Messiah's Self-Study Committee: Karen Edsell, Bryan Gardiner, Margaret Goode, Sarah Miranda, Janet Taylor, and Fay Willey

The Self-Study Committee generated three documents that may be useful to anyone interested in our parish. They are:

	The Church of the Messiah 2009 Parish Profile*;
	"Episcopal Church of the Messiah: Looking to Self and Diversity in Transition," a slide presentation given to members of our community on April 5th, 2009; and
	The Results of the Rector Search Questionnaire sent to our members in February 2009.

*N.B. -- The Parish Profile is a large document rich in graphics and hyperlinks, and may take a while to load, depending on the speed of your connection. Since it has to reload every time you return from a hyperlink, it's best to open any links in the profile into a new tab or window, or save the profile to your computer, rather than navigate from it as a website document.

- This page updated on December 29, 2009 -