Churches Seeking Staff - Evangelical Covenant Church
| The Department of Order Ministry (DOOM) is doing a good job with Churches Seeking Staff web page. They are updating it frequently and where they can put links to job descriptions. Recently I've seen they have added the category "Interim Pastor Positions". Nice. The total number of Senior Pastor positions available, including Interim but not including Alaska and Canada is: 30 which is pretty low. Let's look at some of the choice positions: Bethany Covenant Church in Lyndhurst, OH. I used to live in that neighborhood and my oldest kids went to pre-school there. We'll ask our friend Luke to make some good comments about his church, but I think it's a great place. The last pastor left under good terms after a 10 year stellar ministry there. They have good leaders, a pre-school, an emergent flavored worship experience and more traditional service and a prime location. Lyndhurst & the metro Cleveland area is a fantastic place to live and raise a family. Good economy, world class health care, great park system, the Browns & Indians, some years you can play golf year round (I did) and Lyndhurst has good schools. Zion Covenant Church in Jamestown, NY. If you enjoy snow, this is the place to go. Zion has close connections to the fabulous Camp Mission Meadows. It's a small city and gets rural quickly but I think Jamestown is quaint, Lake Chautauqua is georgeous and western New York in general is beautiful. I did an evangelism seminar there and met some really great people, and was impressed with some of the thinking of their leaders. Despite some of their conflict with their last pastor, who is a beloved friend, I think this has the potential to be a fantastic place for ministry. Incredibly, the churches in North Miami and Venice, FL remain open. How? I dunno. There's a little known DOOM rule that says if a church is located within half an hour of the ocean one doesn't need to be called -- everyone is called to go and enjoy the ocean. I did my CPE in Sarasota and we used to go down to Venice to enjoy the beach and find shark's teeth. It's a great place. Jeff Shirle is going to be the new Lead Pastor at Hope-Covenant Church in Crystal Lake, IL. That should be a great fit. Congratulations Jeff! Of course that means another position opens up: Looks like Paul Knight and the fantastic Hope Covenant Church in Grand Forks, ND will be searching for a new associate pastor ... again. |
posted by theultrarev at 1:33 PM
Comments on "Churches Seeking Staff - Evangelical Covenant Church"
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Luke said ... (3:19 PM, December 12, 2007) :
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theultrarev said ... (3:43 PM, December 12, 2007) :
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Luke said ... (2:31 PM, December 13, 2007) :
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Anonymous said ... (9:00 PM, December 17, 2007) :
post a commentUltraRev - not much to add to your kind words.
Our vision motto is, "Building Community in Christ." Bethany Cov. recently moved from a Council form of government to a Leadership Team. The LT is very collegial, seeking consensus rather than votes. Much discussion takes place via e-mail between meetings, which helps to keep meeting time down. Individual ministry teams are aligned with our core values, and empowered to make most decisions. We don't have a parsonage, but we have a fund to loan the pastor a down payment for the purchase of his/her own home.
While we are well into the search process, we took some time in finding an interim pastor. During the four months between the departure of our much loved previous pastor and the arrival of our interim pastor, we have been very fortunate in finding quite a wide variety of voices to guide us. Our guest speakers were quite diverse, which was very healthy.
While we are enjoying our new interim pastor, we also look forward to establishing relationships with a long-term pastor, and covet your prayers that our search will be immersed in God's will and bathed in His provident grace.
As far as the greater community, Lyndhurst, Ohio, was recently rated the 28th best place in the entire nation to raise a family, by a national publication - for whatever that is worth.
OK, I guess I did find a few words to add... (grin) I must have been working on that Church Profile too much, these days.
That "much beloved previous pastor" was a piece of work. I worked hard to train him. Glad that it worked out for you. :))
UltraRev:
You trained him? It took us YEARS to whip him into shape!!!
(grin)
You both assume I'm in shape, yet! Not the case. Still in training, as always. Both of you have taught me more than either of you know. Thanks! And yes, Bethany was a great place to serve, and Lyndhurst a great place to live. I laughed out loud when I saw that Lyndhurst hit number 28 on that list and that Chagrin Falls (far more picturesque) ranked much lower. Very cool. Needless to say, we didn't show that one to our kids!