We have been actively interviewing and have asked someone to be our primary candidate.  To ask someone to be your primary candidate means this is the only person we are currently working with. That in turn applies to the candidate.   Being in the primary candidate stage also means we have certain steps we have to take with this candidate before we can approach the council with a recommendation.  At this point we are actively engaged in taking those steps.  You can consider the primary candidacy stage “the getting to know you“ phase of the search.  We are getting to know our candidate better and he is getting to know us better.  The next step after the getting to know you phase, upon mutual agreement, will be to present our candidate to council and make a recommendation that council accept this candidate to present to you.  Council will also have to approve a mutually agreed upon compensation package.  Once that step is completed, then we will have a “meet and greet” event for you to be introduced to the candidate.   Once a meet and greet event is held, then we will have a called congregational meeting to recommend you vote to extend a call to the candidate and if that passes, we will vote on a compensation package.  If that is approved, then we would notify our candidate and he will have 30 days to accept the call.  While the Call Committee would love to joyfully announce the candidate’s name, we ask that you honor our pledge to confidently during this phase. We also continue to ask for your continued prayers through this discernment process.