Staff Changes - May12th, 2021
What’s Going On? - Staff Changes
If all goes well, staff will continue to change. We are studying “The Leader’s Journey” together, a book designed to help us grow. We continue to meet and converse about ministry and take tests that help us understand ourselves and each other. So, hopefully, we continue to change (transform) into a stronger team.
Staff is also changing in the other sense of the word. There are changes coming to who is on staff at Mountainview. Yesterday we heard from Christine Winter that she will be moving on at the end of the summer as she takes a full-time teaching role with Cairn Christian School in Smithville. This will trigger conversations about what do we want to see for the next stage of children’s ministry and who do we need to help us get there. And a hiring process will ensue. Change like this is difficult, because of the relationships formed with Christine and the patterns we have come to expect. There is grieving to do even as we celebrate who Christine has been among us. However, this change is also somewhat timely as we have to figure out what does it mean to bring children’s ministry back into play as we enter a post-pandemic church season?
Another change on staff is that Pastor Fred Vanderberg will be completing his role among us at the end of June. Fred, as most of you know, is already officially retired, and has graciously carried on part-time pastoral work in this time of transition. At the end of June, he will fully engage his retired status.
Connected with Fred’s departure is the fact that Peter Kranenburg will be joining us starting on June 1 as an intern. Peter is studying at Calvin Seminary, lives in Hamilton, and will be working among us half-time. His goal is to learn about his strengths and preferences in ministry and the best way to do that is to engage in work in a church setting. At the same time, Brandon Vermeer, who presently holds the youth, young adult, small groups and social media portfolios as our Ministry Associate, will join Peter and I in thinking through how best to divvy up pastoral leadership work.
Allow me to give you a bit of perspective on how I would like to approach this conversation. As lead pastor, I want to be able to stay engage enough in different areas of ministry so as to be able to lead with knowledge and experience. I also want to be able to preach in a way that connects with the realities of the congregation. At the same time, this is a large congregation with many ministries and much potential, and so it is important that we have others engaged as staff leaders. Add to that the reality that the main job of every staff member (and this is of vital Importance in this conversation) is mandated to help congregation members engage in ministry. All this adds up to a complex equation about how much and what roles need to be staffed and what focus should they have. This is an ongoing conversation, and probably always will be, but this year in particular will be one where we spend time reflecting on how we set up staff to best help Mountainview be engaged missionally.
Your prayers for and participation in this conversation is appreciated.
Pastor Erick Schuringa