What does your Committee on Ministry do?

*    Establish a relationship with Ministers and Sessions.

*    Visit your Minister and Session at least annually.

*    Conduct a triennial in-depth visit with your Session and Minister.

*    Serve as a resource for your Session and Minister.

*    Connect your Session with the appropriate consultants from the Presbytery during times of        transition between ministers, counsel with the PNC during the search process, assist in arranging for interim ministry..

*    Work with your Session and Minister(s) to ensure good pastoral relationships.

*    Assist in arranging pastoral installations.

*    Provide resources for conflict transformation, mediation, or crises.

*    Connect your Session and Minister with appropriate Presbytery resources to help your church meet its challenges.

Structure

The Committee on Ministry is one of the few committees mandated by the Book of Order.  It is comprised equally of Elders and Ministers from the four quadrants of our Presbytery who are elected for three year terms.  It meets as Quadrant COM most months locally in each of the four quadrants, and as a full Committee on Ministry at least quarterly. 

Each church has a COM liaison

Each church and each minister in the Presbytery has a COM liaison assigned to them.  Ministers who are serving in churches have the same liaison as their church--the liaison is the advocate for the whole church:  staff, Session and congregation.  The goal of the Committee on Ministry relationship is to support each church in serving Jesus Christ in its particular circumstances.

The COM liaison may initiate visits with the Ministers or Session; or the Minister or Session may request a COM visit. The Committee on Ministry is not just a resource for troubles times--ideally, the COM liaison will develop a relationship with Sessions and Ministers so that they might proactively be a resource.  Each COM liaison is assigned to between two and five churches, and of course, your COM liaison might have responsibilities in their own church as well. 

A word from Paul to the church:

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all....

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

                    Ephesians 4:1-6, 11-16