Pray for my church, as we call a new pastor.
As many of you will remember, my church has been engaged in the search for a new pastor since last summer. Our Pastoral Search Committee members, of which I am one, have each spent hundreds of hours in study, research, interviews and prayer in order to faithfully discharge the duty entrusted to us by our fellow congregants. We have been most ably aided by our Area Minister, Dr. Muriel Johnson, by our interim pastors, the Rev. Bill Carter and the Rev. Richard Lance, and by the wonderful staff at of the American Baptist Churches (USA) in Valley Forge PA.
It is with great hope and even greater gratitude to God for His guidance, that we will extend a call tomorrow to a wonderful man of God, a man who I will not name at this time. I will say that he is not at all who I would have envisioned us calling to our pulpit a year ago, when we began our search, but I firmly believe that he is who God means to lead our congregation into the future. He is quite young-- 32-- and will be the youngest pastor ever to lead our church in the 175 years of our existence as a congregation. For those who do not believe, it might be hard to explain, but others of you will understand me when I say that it is clear that the spirit of our Lord burns within him. We have asked God for His help and His guidance, and I believe with all my heart, my soul and mind that He has led us to this young man.
Rev. X, as I will call him for now, is an unabashed progressive; during our Skype interview with him a month ago, he candidly told us, "I must tell you this, so that there is no misunderstanding between us, either now or in the future: I see the role of church in the 21st Century as one that comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable, to borrow the words of Mary 'Mother' Jones".
Again, please pray for us.
--CCD
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We started with over 100 resumes of pastors who matched our search criteria (education, ordination, Biblical knowledge, strength of preaching, pastoral skills and management ability, general fitness of character, stability of home life, good health, etc.), and we 'winnowed' the number repeatedly, until there were three left-- a 42 year-old woman from OR, a 51 year-old man from CT and a 32 year-old man from OH.
We brought all 3 to area churches as guest speakers, and then did 'meet and greets' with them afterward. In theory, that should have made our task easier, but it didn't, because all 3 are dynamic preachers and lovely people. After much prayer and soul searching, we were unanimous in our choice, much to our surprise.
She is in the area on another matter, and asked us if we would like to have lunch together and get acquainted, and we do.