On Wednesday, April 22nd we met with Pastor Gene Sims. Pastor Sims serves as our district president (supervisor of the churches in our area). We had a good visit. About 26 attended. We had a lot of positive conversation with him. He gave us good feedback. We got some good hope from the conversation.
- He taught us about the call for a pastor
- He listened to us about the congregation, its needs, and the gifts that would match our situation
- He helped us call Pastor David Rau from St James in Portage to fill our vacant pastor position during this interim
- He helped us decide to ask for a new graduate from our seminary.
Pastor Sims emphasized a number of the same points we've been making:
- The congregation owns and drives the call process. Peace is looking for a pastor, the synod is not assigning a pastor. The synod or denomination assists Peace is seeking a pastor, but Peace drives the process.
- Issuing a divine call is not like hiring for job. While we can explain it as many things to help people who don't share the same biblical convictions, it is a "God thing". God asks through the congregation of Peace for a man to serve as a pastor. God is directing this work through people and working in partnership with them. The entire congregation should heartily pray about each call.
- The process is meant to bring us together for unity and consensus, so let's enjoy coming together.
Since we decided to call a graduate, we will now wait for news. Students from our seminary are assigned their places May 21st, so we'll wait until then. We will let you know the news then!
The next steps in our transition process are
- to hire a secretary or administrative assistant to help with matters during the interim
- to have a workshop to start handing items off. That'll be the second week of May (date and time TBD)
- to wait until May 21st for grad news.
We'll have a farewell service and brunch on May 31st. Hope you'll join us!