Meet our new Senior Administrator (part 1)

Months ago, I asked the Education Committee of our Board of Education that oversees Lititz Christian School and Morningstar Daycare, Preschool and Kindergarten to look at our current structure; to meet with our current leaders; and to look at how other schools were set up to see if there were any changes that we should consider implementing that would make our School and our Daycare even more effective. This committee, who all are professional educators, came back to me with a recommendation that included adding a Senior Administrator position that would oversee the entire educational ministry of our church including Morningstar Daycare and Lititz Christian School. Currently we are asking our present administration to care for the day-to-day operations of each ministry (which is more than a full-time job in itself) and be responsible for the future vision and development of every area of our programs. This new position will allow us to have someone overseeing both ministries whose main focus and priority can be that of vision and development so that we can pursue further excellence in every area.

This will also be a huge benefit to me as the Sr. Pastor. When I was hired back in August of 2004, everyone realized that education was not my strength (which is why you will probably find multiple grammar and spelling mistakes in this correspondence). Though I technically am the one who has oversight over all of the ministries of Grace Church, including the daycare and school, I do not have the knowledge or the expertise to help our current school and daycare leaders in areas of educational matters. And to be honest, even if I did have this strength, I honestly do not have the time to give to helping with the vision and development of the daycare and the school that they deserve. The reason for this is that our church has seen significant growth over the past 18 months. On Sunday mornings we now are running over 1200 people regularly for worship and we now have well over 1600 people who attend our church on a regular basis. As you can imagine, this consumes most all of my time. Adding a qualified person to oversee the entire educational ministry who can give educational help to our present leaders and focus on the future vision and development of this ministry is good for the daycare; it’s good for the school; it’s good for our present school administration; it’s good for me as the Sr. Pastor; it’s good for the church; and it’s good for our ministry as a whole.

This recommendation was then presented to the full Board of Education who were very enthusiastic about what this could mean for our educational ministries. Several months later the Board of Education officially presented me with the recommendation for this change. I also presented the recommendation to our Elder Executive Committee and then to our full Elder Board here at Grace Church to get their input. They too saw these recommendations as good for our daycare; good for our school; and good for our church. I then made the final decision to begin this implementation.

In my upcoming blog postings, I will give you even more information as to how we went about finding a person to take this position and who we have hired to be the new Senior Administrator over all of our educational ministries run by Grace Church.