Pastoral Search Launches

This month we officially launch a new pastoral search to fill the Pastor of Connections position here at Grace Church. Our goal is to hire someone who will be able to lead our church into building an effective small groups ministry. As leadership, we realize that the future health of our church is dependent on our being able to get the hundreds of people that God is bringing to us into a small group where they can connect, grow and be cared for. We don't just want to be a church WITH small groups, we want to be a church OF small groups. There is a major difference. Our present ABF and Deacon ministries are important but are not designed to keep up with a church of our size. We don’t desire to end our ABF or Deacon ministry. These ministries have their place and their purpose. But we must make small groups a serious direction and now is the time to do so.

John Kegarise, our Elder Board Chairman, will be spearheading this search process working very closely with Mike Lutz, who chaired the previous search for a Senior Pastor. These are two very godly, influential and credible men in our church. God has given them both a passion to see our church move in the direction of small groups and I believe that God will greatly use them to help us get there. We will be conducting this search much in the same way that the search was handled for the Senior Pastor and will involve three committees. The first committee will be the research committee whose job it will be to develop a list of possibilities. The second committee will be the interview committee who will then take that list and using applications, interviews, and checking references, narrow down the field of possibilities. Once the field is narrowed down I will become very involved as well with this committee. We also have a prayer committee who will be seeing that the whole process is bathed in prayer along the way.

Ideally, we would like to find someone who has had experience in a church our size or larger in building an effective small groups ministry from scratch. We would also like this to be someone who is a dynamic communicator. Anytime we look to hire a staff member, there are 4 “C’s” that I also think are very important

Character: We want to hire a person of godly character inside and outside the church!

Competence: We want to hire a person who is capable of accomplishing the job!

Chemistry: We want to hire a person who mixes well with our present staff and adds energy to our team rather than draining energy from our team

Courage: We want to hire a person who is willing to take calculated risks as the Spirit of God leads them and us as a ministry

Please be praying for John and Mike as they spearhead this search; for each committee as they fulfill their tasks; for the person God will lead us to; and for our church as a whole that this will be another effective and exciting step in our being able to better meet people where they are and then help move them to where God wants them to be.