 Hello, I'm Mike McKee, the Bishop of the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. Last week, the North Texas Annual Conference, both the lay and clergy members of the conference, affirmed a new process for identifying and sustaining clergy excellence for the churches of the North Texas Conference. We want to be in partnership with you, the Staff Parish Relations Committees, and the clergy appointed to congregations. And in that process, we will together begin to help clergy become even more effective. It's really the goal of the North Texas Conference to have the most effective clergy in the denomination in our country. Our process for ensuring clergy excellence begins with a clear understanding of what we mean by clergy effectiveness. The North Texas Conference defines three areas of effectiveness and calls for specific behaviors and characteristics in each, living as a disciple, leading your congregation, and developing your mission. Pastoral effectiveness will be assessed in these three areas by the Staff Pastor Parish Relations Committee of a local church, using the Marks of Fruitfulness Assessment Tool. The pastor will also do a self-assessment. We will partner with you in this work by identifying and providing resources in each of the three areas. I invite you and your committee to partner with your pastor to develop a plan for sustaining pastoral effectiveness. At last week's service of ordination, Bishop Sally Dick, our guest preacher, shared with those being ordained and commissioned and the rest of us that ministry is rocket science. It takes a team, a team of persons who will bring their own passions, their commitment, and even their faith to the process of identifying and sustaining clergy excellence so that we may have vital congregations in the North Texas annual conference. Thank you. Thank you for being a member of the team and thank you for the passions that you will bring to developing effective clergy. God bless you.