Church Functions

Last night I had the priviledge to meet the new pastoral candidate for our church. Now usually the person who represents the committee was gone out of the country to visit family and the other person (who created the committee) was also gone to an appointment. This left me and another person (who was sick) to represent the comittee. I was planning on telling the candidate about our committee but totally forgot the sheet.

It was nice to sit down and "break bread" with the pastoral candidate and the rest of Church Council. I was just happy to be apart of this whole process.

When I first attended and eventually became a member of our church, the pastor was here at least a good 10 years. I got to know him as I expressed an interest in joining the church back in the early 90's. Pastor W was around my age and he was one our favorite pastors. Then Pastor W left to pastor another church. When they had the search committee for the next pastor, L's dad was on the committee. I remember looking through the sheets of the bios of possible candidates whom the comittee was considering. L and I read through the sheets and thought another candidate, who they did not choose, would have been a pretty good choice. The church called Pastor V to pastor at the church about 13 years ago. During this process though, I don't ever remember Pastor V visiting with the congregation and having so many meetings. Maybe I didn't remember it because I was pregnant with my last child then.

During Pastor V's tenure, we had a "parting of the ways," and left the church going to another one up the road. We were away for about 4 years. During that time the church hired a youth pastor, by the name of Pastor Y. When we came back to our home church, Pastor Y was the lead pastor. We liked him quite a bit. It didn't have anything to do that he was from my hometown and that I knew his sister back in junior high. He was just a nice guy who seemingly had a passion for a call in the ministry.

That was until last year, he had another calling and ended his term at our church. Our church formed the search committee and we have done several forums, check sheets to see what person would best fit our congregation.

I was happy to meet Pastor S. We got to know him more and found out what his passions were for our church. It is interesting to be able to meet a new pastor (to be) rather than to be assigned one as they do in Methodist and Catholic Churches. Where I went to church (Presbyterian) we had search committees just like at our Mennonite Church. I never got to be apart of the process or knew anyone remotely related to the ones at the Presbyterian Church, but I was very thankful that I did get to have the opportunity to meet our candidate.

Thankfully our church has made it easy for nearly everyone to get to know Pastor S. They have held dinners with the classes; there will be a special dinner tomorrow night a church-wide get together. There are breakfast get togethers as well. Whomever thought of introducing the pastoral candidate in these informal settings was smart!

I am hoping that Pastor S will become our new pastor. He does have a passion for leadership and youth. Good job pastoral search committee in finding him.