Slideshow image

Hi friends, 

I want to thank you for joining me to bring people the gospel of Jesus. I love our work and life together all driven by what Jesus has done for us. 

We've started our process to find the next pastor for Peace. 

Next step: pre-call survey and pre-call meeting on April 22nd 6:30 pm. 

We want to ask you to do something: fill out this pre-call survey and return it to church@peaceotsego.org or drop it off at the service on April 19th so that we can all participate in a pre-call meeting on April 22nd at 6:30 pm. 

Here's why: 

We've begun a time of pastoral transition. Pastor Timmermann is heading off to new work. The people of Peace are looking to bring in another pastor. We are going to do what the Macedonians did, "Come over to Macedonia and help us" (Acts 16:6-10). We are asking the Holy Spirit to set apart someone for us (Acts 13:2). 

We do this by gathering input and coming to a consensus regarding our situation and pastoral needs through a pre-call survey and meeting. The survey needs to be in by (not before) April 19th, the pre-call meeting with the district president is April 22nd at 6:30 pm

On April 22nd, we'll meet with the district president. We'll call a pastor to serve during our interim in the vacant pastor role (often called a "vacancy pastor") who will support us. We'll also decide whether we want to call a recent seminary graduate. 

We had a good meeting at our first Transition Workshop. This pre-call meeting on April 22nd is our next step. Thanks for working together with all of us at Peace. We love Jesus and you. Let's keep loving others! 

 

When is the next meeting? April 22nd 6:30 pm. This meeting is a formal public start of the process to call a pastor.

Why the short notice or the hurry? This is indeed a hurry and it is unfortunate. We the council are not excited about it, but there seemed to be no other way. Here is the rationale.

  1. Requests for a new graduate from our seminary must be made by Tuesday April 28th
  2. Initial conversations with members indicated an interest in calling a graduate. When asked, “should we look into calling a pastor straight out of school” or “would you be interested in calling a man who has finished school only a month ago”, interest was overwhelmingly positive.
  3. The council contacted the regional supervisor of our churches, that is, our district president, to ask him to come and talk to the congregation about calling a graduate. The date he could come the closest to April 28th and still give us time to get paperwork in is April 22nd.
  4. The council deliberated not calling a graduate because of the short notice, but decided that we needed to let the congregation weigh in on that decision.

Therefore, the date of April 22nd at 6:30 pm was set.

 

Who can come?

Every church will handle this a little differently. At Peace, everyone who is a member of Peace or has been attending Peace may come. Men, women, children. All of you.

There will be a couple of times during the night when we vote and only voting members of Peace can vote. To be a voting member you must have read and agreed to the constitution and bylaws and signed accordingly. Please do not walk into the meeting and assume you can vote, but I/we would be happy to talk with you outside of the meeting about voting.

 

What is the agenda?

  1. The Divine Call (presentation by Gene Sims)
  2. A congregational profile through the pre-call survey (conversation with Gene Sims)
  3. A call to serve in the vacant pastoral office (vote by congregation)
  4. A decision whether to call a grad

 

How long will the meeting take? I don’t know. Plan at least an hour and a half.

 

Do I need to fill out this pre-call survey?

No, and yes.

You may attend and participate in the meeting even if you don ‘t fill out the survey. Everyone participating in Peace may attend. 

However, realize that the survey gives everyone an equal voice and clear say in the future of the congregation. Please don't show up at the meeting and ignore what everyone else has thoughtfully said and done. 

 

When will results of the meeting be announced? 

A short version of the meeting will be made public with the weekly news for Sunday April 26th. A public sharing will also be made on Sunday April 26th. 

 

Downloads