The gold fish bowl experience

This weekend, the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania is holding its selection conference for ordained ministries. This means that about a dozen or so hopeful applicants (who have already been through a fairly rigorous process of discernment to get to this point) will be facing a selection panel, who together will discern whether there is a calling to the ordained ministries within the Uniting Church for these people.

It's hard to believe that it's a whole year since I went through the same process. For me it was quite a surreal experience. Being the only Tasmanian applicant brought its own interesting aspects to the process, but for all of us applicants it was hard work.

First, on arrival on Friday night, there was an informal 'meet and greet' as all the applicants got to have supper with the members of the panel and chat informally.

Rule no.1 (according to a minster friend of mine) is that NOTHING at Selection Conference is informal or off the record. You can guarantee that the panel members are watching your every move, and may refer to that casual, throw-away comment made over coffee in one of your interviews.

I found it rather disconcerting that I was greeted by a man I had never met before with "Hello, you must be Caro, I recognised you from your photo," and the conversation continued in a rather weighted manner, as it became obvious that he knew just about everything about me (which of course, as a member of the panel, he would, after reading all the paper warfare of my application documents and references etc) and I knew nothing about him. It totally perverted the usual ritual of meeting people for the first time, where both parties usually swap little tidbits about themselves, in a process which gradually moves the level of disclosure from the superficial and 'public domain' to more intimate details of how you think, feel etc. As I said, I found this cutting across the usual social rituals to be rather disconcerting.

Then came a group activity (have I mentioned how much I LOVE group activities -not-?) Hmph.

Then the Saturday was spent in interviews: each applicant had two interviews, with two panel members on each occasion. The first was on the topic of vocation and calling, and the second on academic and personal support issues.

Rule no. 2 (also from the same minister friend) If you are asked at interview what you would do if the selection panel recommends you not be accepted as a candidate, the only right answer is to say: "well, I guess that means you'll see me again next year, as I am so convinced in my sense of calling to this ministry". The important thing is to convey a sense of confidence in one's calling, without being arrogant and treating the process like a fait accompli.

We were also warned that when not participating in formal interviews, all applicants were requested (required) to hang out in the common room, to enable 'informal conversations' with other panel members over coffee (refer Rule no.1).

There was also another group activity on the Saturday (oh joy!)... but these were not just normal group activities... the applicants (there were 7 of us last year) sat in an 'inner circle' of chairs to discuss the task we had to do, whilst the members of the panel all hovered in the background; watching, listening, taking notes... serious goldfish bowl stuff!

At one level the process was quite intimidating (even though all the members of the panel were really nice, and tried to put us at our ease as much as possible), but as one of the current candidates (a few of whom were present at the weekend) said to me, it was pretty awesome to think that all of these people were prayerfully participating in the process of discernment about the next step in my life and ministry. Quite a privilege, really.

One thing about the selection conference weekend that is different this year, is that current candidates have not been asked to be present to chat with applicants and provide some information about what life is like at theological college. And with so many applicants this year, which will presumably mean that the selection panel is also slightly larger than last year, it will probably be less crowded or confusing to the process to not have those extra people (current candidates) around.

So for me, that means that the only way to support the process (and the applicants!) is to be praying for them this weekend (and for the panel members in their deliberations tonight and tomorrow).

May God be with them all!