29 April 2022
Dear Elder Board,
It has been our privilege and joy to serve as the search committee as we seek to hire a new senior pastor. Our task has been to source candidates; conduct three stages of increasingly in-depth interviews and reference calls; and ultimately determine a final candidate we can recommend to you as an excellent person to hire for the role. In this work, we have prayerfully represented the interests and hopes of the congregation, the staff, and the board as the stewards of City Church’s vision and mission. As such, we have looked for the person who could both understand and connect with the DNA of City Church as well as steward us forward into our dreams for the future.
We are delighted to inform you that as a result of this process, we unanimously recommend extending an offer of the Senior Pastor position to Reverend Emily McGinley. She is an excellent candidate across the board, and we feel confident that she will accomplish the outcomes that are central to the mission and vision of City Church: she will inspire us with a vision of Jesus-centered discipleship, service, and inclusion; she will foster a warm and welcoming environment where everyone can belong; and she will lead the staff with health and grace.
Emily plainly possesses the experience to serve as senior pastor; moreover, her tenure at Urban Village – planting a site in the South Side of Chicago, then guiding the church as a whole through an antiracism audit and more fully into its proclaimed values of inclusion – shows us that she has the background we need to grow as we aspire to be a fully inclusive church as well. We were heartened to learn of her conviction that antiracism and the work of justice is discipleship: an echo of our shared evangelical origins and our ongoing values of being Jesus-centered and ever-reforming. Throughout all of our interactions with Emily, she also reflected a vital and embodied personal faith rooted in deep love for the Lord.
Furthermore, at each point along the way, Emily has demonstrated kindness, curiosity, humor, intelligence, and a keen interest in San Francisco. She clearly loves living, raising a family, and ministering in an urban space. She is gracious, kind, warm, and open in a way that we need. Her vision of the church as a place where everyone can come in from the cold was inspiring and encouraging to us – and it was borne out as something she seeks to practice in all of our interactions with her.
In her time with us, Emily also got a glimpse of the challenges that we face as we emerge together from a global pandemic, both congregationally and on our staff. Her response was excitement about being with people who can do hard things, and a deep desire to lead from a place of care and collaboration as we discern our future together. Her reference calls, her staff health interview, and her interactions here in San Francisco with staff and congregants all lead us to believe that she will not only lead our staff, but care for them pastorally, build their collective sense of shared mission going forward, and inspire them in their respective ministries.
Over the past nine months, we have done screening calls; four in-depth and focused interviews; viewed sermons and talks; made reference calls; and spent more than four days interviewing and interacting with Emily in person here in San Francisco. Out of all of these touchpoints, we are confident that Emily is the person to lead City Church as our senior pastor for the future.
With grace and peace,
The Search Committee
Sarah Dahl, chair
Christie Chew
Kim San Gabriel
Tom Giles
Stephanie Lai
Elliot Rossomme
Laura Turner
Joshua Jalandoon, staff representative
Lucia Angel, elder representative
Jon Dahl, elder representative
Kenny Oyedeji, elder representative