Okay, so a lot of things have changed at our church and in my job. Over the summer (2014) we 1) made some major changes to our church governance and 2) restructured our staff. It was an extremely full summer keeping up with and adjusting to these changes on top of the normal summer craziness.

Changes to our Church’s Governance Structure

We moved from a Council form of governance to a Leadership Team model. If you’re interested in learning more about how this

works in our church, you can read more here. Our denomination encourages three forms of governance: the Board Model, the Council Model, and the Leadership Team Model. If you’re interested in seeing a model constitution from each of these, you can find them on our denominational website.

Changes to our Staffing Structure

We also made a pretty big change to our staffing structure. This change affected me in that it brought several areas of ministry (kids ministry, student ministry, and college/young adults ministry) into one area of alignment called NextGen Ministries.

NextGen Ministries

Our NextGen Ministries include the following.

1. 5 Staff
   1. Associate Pastor, NextGen Ministries (me)
   2. Director, Student Ministries (Sarah)
   3. Director, Kids Ministries (Janna)
   4. Worship & Creative Leader, Students (Joel)
   5. Worship Leader, Kids (Sarah)
2. 100+ Volunteers
   1. Kids Ministries – approximately 60
   2. Student Ministries – approximately 40+
   3. Young Adult Ministries – around 12
3. 500+ Kids (0-25)
   1. Kids Ministries – approximately 150-200
   2. Student Ministries – approximately 250-300
   3. Young Adults – approximately 60-70

We also partner closely with the Marriage & Family Ministries of our church which include the following.

1. Associate Pastor, Marriage & Family Ministries
2. Teams and their Ministries
   1. Marriage Ministries Development Team
      1. Marriage enrichment groups & classes
      2. Marriage enrichment retreats and events
      3. Marriage counseling
   2. Family Ministries Development Team
      1. Parenting classes
      2. Young families small groups ministry
      3. Family counseling

Good for Ministry

We think this new alignment and restructuring will help our ministries in a number of ways.

1. It’ll provide more continuity in our ministry values, strategies, and curriculum for kids of all ages, 0-25.
2. It’ll provide equal administrative and leadership support to each area of ministry.
3. It’ll provide more of a team approach to all our ministries.

Lots to Learn

Needless to say, it was an extremely busy Summer and Fall! I guess that’s why I haven’t been blogging much….just couldn’t keep up! I’m pretty excited about all this, though. But it’s all still pretty new to me. I’ve got a lot to learn about

1. Supporting and managing multiple staff.
2. Supporting ministries to such a broad range of ages.
3. Taking care of myself, my relationship with Christ, and my family in the midst of it all.

So there ya have it. That’s me and my life on the growing edge!