Greetings!

Thank you for serving on one of the Indiana Conference District Committees on Ministry (dCOM)! This is an awesome and holy responsibility, to journey alongside persons as they seek to discover, develop, and deploy their calling from God in ministry. I am so grateful for your willingness to share your gifts with God through the work of the dCOM and by extension the Board of Ordained Ministry!

This handbook is intended to accomplish three goals:

• First, we want to make your valuable work as easy as possible. This handbook attempts to address everything you will need to do your work as a committee from organization, mentor recruitment, and the interview processes. It is designed to be used as a development tool when the team gathers for its intended work.
• Second, the Indiana Board of Ordained Ministry wants to ensure that all candidates are examined justly and consistently. When you conduct an interview, you can flip to the right page in this handbook and have everything you need to conduct a thorough and careful interview. Using a common set of questions for all candidates, local pastors, provisional elders, and provisional deacons will ensure that candidates across the conference will receive a thorough and consistent experience. Our faith demands that we treat all people fairly.
• Third, we want to ensure our interviews rigorously examine all candidates and local pastors in the areas of Wesleyan theology, practice of ministry (leadership and fruitfulness), their articulation of calling, and how they lead a disciplined life as a follower of Jesus. The qualities of Transformational Leadership for the Indiana Conference more clearly defines this.

All dCOM work carries an important level of confidentiality. As a matter of trust, it is essential that you observe the covenant of not discussing the work of this committee with anyone outside of the committee, nor share files with others.

This is an exciting journey to share together. Please be in prayer for the dCOM and candidates, the district and conference staff, the Board of Ordained Ministry, and for yourself. Pray that through this work God will raise up outstanding leadership for our churches in this time.

Please join me in ensuring that our work is always fair, rigorous, and Wesleyan.

Thanks, and may God bless you in this holy task!

Rev. Matthew J. Leffler, Sr.

Associate Director of Leadership Development

P.S. The Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church is deeply indebted to the many conferences in our connection whose dCOM Handbooks we used as references in this revision. Thank you for making your resources available for us to use to improve ours.****