Staffing for Growth

    Two of the four major initiatives to come out of our New Day Campaign are to strengthen our worship and music ministry and our children, youth, and family ministry.  One of the ways in which we are strengthening these ministries is by growing our staff.  We have made the commitment to move to a full-time Worship and Music Director and to move toward two full-time Children, Youth, and Family Directors over the next five years.

    Growing our staff is a critical piece of our plan to grow as a congregation.  In my experience, a congregation can staff in three ways: for decline, for maintenance, and for growth.  Now, of course, a congregation doesn’t deliberately staff for decline but that is the net effect of the decisions they make regarding staffing.  There are other congregations that staff in order to maintain the status quo.  And then there are the most vibrant, visionary congregations that staff for growth, that is, they staff in way that allows staff members the time and energy to be creative, visionary, and innovative.  We are committed to being a congregation that is always staffing for growth.  

    Our Worship and Music Search Committee is hard at work.  We received ten applications for our full-time Worship and Music Director position.  All the applicants had graduate degrees in music and anywhere from three to more than twenty years of experience.  We were delighted with the high quality of the applicants.

    We have chosen to interview and audition three of the candidates.  Two of the interviews/auditions were in person and the third was via Skype.  We’ve also decided to have all three of the candidates come to Light of Christ in June and play for worship on a Sunday morning/Monday evening.  Then following each service there will be a time to get to know each of the candidates and do a little Q and A.

    On June 9/10 Katie Kohler will be with us; on June 16/17 Paula Paige Mowbray will be here at Light of Christ; and on June 23/24 we will be hosting Pastor Young Chung.  The Search Committee would like to hear from you about each of the candidates.  You can give your feedback/impressions/insights to any member of the Committee: Marcus Hanson (chair), Laurie Brown, Michelle Bunker, Sue Fink, Bridget Hanson, JoMarie Williamson, or me.

    Once we have hosted each of the candidates the Committee intends to make a recommendation to the Church Council around July 1.  The Council will then make the final decision on which candidate to whom we will offer the position.  Please continue to keep this Search process and the decision on a new Worship and Music Director in your prayers.

    We are also hard at work to find a successor to David by the end of the summer.  We are currently recruiting people to serve on a Search Committee to find a new Associate Director of Children, Youth, and Family Ministry so please let me know if you are interested in serving on this Search Committee over the next three months.

    We have also decided to reconfigure our staffing for our Children, Youth, and Family Ministry.  Beginning September 1 Kirsten Kelly, our Director for Children, Youth, and Family, will increase her hours from 16 hours a week to 24-28 hours per week. Then we will add a half-time Associate Director work with Kirsten.  And rather than strictly separate the duties as we have (the Director focusing on birth through sixth grade, and the Associate Director on junior and senior high) we are making this a “job sharing” arrangement in which Kirsten and the Associate Director will divide the duties of the position between the two of them based on skills, experience, and feasibility.  So, both Kirsten and our new Associate Director will both be working with children, youth, and families of all ages.

    If you are interested in this position, or know someone who is, please apply or encourage the person you know to apply.  And as with our Worship and Music Search Committee, please keep our Children, Youth, and Family Search Committee in your prayers.  For above all, these two search processes are a matter of discernment.  We are seeking to discern the will of the Holy Spirit for us.  The question is not: who do we want here at Light of Christ, but who does the Spirit want?  Pray that we will have the grace, the wisdom, and the sensitivity to discern to whom the Spirit is leading us.  

Grace and peace always,

Pastor K