Nomination Exhilaration

I've attended my church for 15 years and been an elder for 12, and yet before last year had never served on its Nominating Committee.  I was Vice Chair last year and Chair this year, and I recently convened this year's team to make nominees for elder and deacon. 

We're still in process, so I can't quite fully share our results yet.  But I can say that our time together as a team was really meaningful, talking about and praying for various members in our congregation.  Each person is a literal treasure, and we grew in thankfulness to God as we went from name to name. 

Even better than just getting to think about each person was considering if and how leadership would be a blessing to them and to the church as a whole.  Since we completed our discussions and I began to follow up with candidates, I've had some who've said no and some who've said yes, and again I've gotten a chance to consider each of these people as official leaders and delight in the anticipation of how that will be good for them and good for us all. 

I cherish my fellow congregants, individually and in the aggregate.  Who knew serving as Chair of the Nominating Committee would be such an exhilarating way to experience this?