Pastors discussion

All last night, I mulled over about the pastor search and the discussion we had a church. At first, I wasn't sure that we should get some one over 40. But if you really think about it maybe we should have a guy at least in his 50's or in that area because if he has a young family that will take time away from his young family. Our congregation has many jobs for this next pastor. The next pastor would have to prepare a sermon, senior visitation, be with the youth, etc.. I would think any young pastor would have to pass on that. I think the job would be even longer than 40 hours.

I think we should get someone who is "seasoned" (as Flute puts it) and if we want to go young for the youth's sake, then we should consider on getting a full time youth pastor.

I was checking the A Church because that church seems like they are doing well. They have a senior pastor and an associate/youth pastor. In the bio it made no mention of their ages, however, according to how many years each man had been married they had to be at least pushing 50, unless they got married when they were under 20.

The A Church has many programs going on, just like we used to. But because of dwidling pre-school population our church no longer sponsors a pre-school. We had to be competitve with the school's pre-school and it was hard to secure a teacher. So we gave up our pre-school after being operational since 1969. Now our prime focus is on the youth (junior high and up).

However, there is a problem because our church is unable to secure more people to help out as sponsors. In my case since, I have youth that attend the youth group, but they don't want me to be hanging around their friends, etc., and I think that's probably how I was too. When I was in a youth group I felt the same way that S and J does. But then again, we would have other couples in the church who was willing to be with the youth to direct them.

In my own life the set up was different. We had actual classes that we attended when we were 13 or so and we learned about the church and the work of the church over several weeks. Then we had to sit near the front row and actually listen to the sermon by taking notes on it. Then at the end of class most of that class would make the decision and join the church. I wanted to be different, and so I chose to wait a few years so people could see this was a conscious decision on my part, instead of a group decision.

Our pastor set up a program for the high school seniors to be involved in worship. We would read a missions story and then read from the Bible, before the sermon. We sat up in front with the pastor and went to sit back with our parents after we did our "job." After a full year of doing this (in my year there were 4 girls) the pastor gave us these carved out crosses (that he made) and I proudly display mine on my mantel to this day. Then they placed our names on a plack in the foyer that we were "Pulpit pages," from 72-73. (I don't know if the placks are still there as I haven't been to my home church for over 12 years).

Maybe if our church would consider doing something like this and getting the youth more involved in church, just maybe a few of them would stick around.

There is a lot of think about from last night. I know that our search committee has a task ahead of them in finding the right person to lead our church. God speed to them.