Pastoral Search Update - Youth and Young Adults
Oct 28, 2020 | by Brad Sumner
Thanks to those who engaged with us this past weekend as we provided an update on our search for a Youth and Young Adults Pastor. Due to technical difficulties, many of you may not have seen or heard the full update. Here is a summary of that conversation.
Our search team includes Miriam Faulkes (representing the elders), Brad (our staff team leader), Diane Zorn (parent), and John Kwon (school teacher and future youth parent).
Our search commenced in August after the elders team approved an expansion in focus from the position being focused solely on youth (Grades 7 - 12) to having it also include Young Adults.
The position remains a half-time (22 hours per week) position. This is so we can offer a benefits package through our national Conference. We feel that this helps us attract and retain suitable candidates.
The search has included communication with all Bible Colleges in lower mainland, local youth pastors in MB and other churches, denominational job boards (national and provincial), advertising in The Light magazine (locally, this is one of the most searched sources for ministry jobs), and personal conversations and invitations to apply.
Since the summer, Pastor Brad has had coffee with 7 individuals, 5 of whom were hired elsewhere or were not able to continue in the process for a wide variety of reasons. Our search team subsequently interviewed 2 applicants. We chose not to continue further with one and we are currently still in-process with one. In our work with this candidate, we have had a first and second interview, called references, processed a Birkman workstyles profile with a consultant, and done a deeper dive into their Enneagram. Once the search team has completed our work, we will make a recommendation to the elders board who does the hiring of our staff.
Part of our goal at the meeting this past Sunday was to gain some feedback on the priorities you see as being necessary for the position. The search team shared that we have prioritized the position profile using a rubric. That document is available for download (again, apologies for the tech difficulties that make it hard to see)
We welcome you to provide your feedback via email to Pastor Brad.
Q&A
?) What are the educational and theological qualifications we would want to see in a candidate?
For us, we would like to see a Bible college educated person (minimum) who is aligned with our Anabaptist distinctives (or willing to learn them) and who would be a good fit with our MB family. They would need to be able to be credentialed by our BCMB Pastoral Ministries Committee within the first two years of employment.
?) Why hire now? Why not wait till the pandemic is over and we can run at full programmatic capacity?
One of the challenges we see is that it will be hard to maintain and advance student and young adult ministry if we wait in a holding pattern for an indeterminate period of time. Our desire would be to have a staff person in place to begin to get their feet underneath them and build relationships and learn JRCC’s staff and organizational culture so that when things open up, they are not brand new to the role and are ready to move into publicly facing ministry at the right pace.
?) What is currently happening with youth and young adults?
Current youth activity includes a twice a month Alpha course plus one activity per month (movie night). Thanks to Brady Ash, pastor Jenna, Jesse Tulman and Jaimie Goh for being amazing volunteers. Young Adults are meeting twice a month with Pastor Brad and Meg for an Enneagram study and once a month for a social event.
?) What are the next steps and timing of those steps?
The search team is going to conclude our discernment process with the current candidate and choose to either move forward with recommending them to the elders or open process back up. We anticipate that this work will occur soon seeing as our stated goal from the start has been to have someone in place by December, if possible.
With thanks,
Brad, Miriam, John and Diane