An Exciting Next Step at SRBC!
SRBC, take a deep breath… you’ve had a big year so far!
· Towards the beginning of the year, so many of you pledged and gave generously towards our 150K Capital Campaign in conjunction with our 150th celebration. Our 150th Capital Funds Campaign team has done an outstanding job. At the end of April, over $155,000 has been pledged and over $125,000 has already been received. Praise God for that!
· At the end of January, we called a new Senior Pastor to shepherd and lead our church. It has been great having Pastor Ariel, Rachel, and their kids here, with many new connections being made and efforts by you to welcome them.
· Our 150th Celebration Team has been working hard at making our 150th Celebration weekend here at SRBC one that we’ll never forget! Their work to plan and bring our entire church in on the excitement for that weekend has been remarkable. I know I’m excited and I hope you are too!
· Our focus on faith stories on Sunday mornings from many of you has been profound. At the end of the year, I hope we can look back and appreciate our church and their willingness to share both big and small ways how their faith has been formed and what God has been up to in their lives. Very encouraging!
· And if that wasn’t enough, you recently met as a congregation at our quarterly business meeting to approve a new search team for our next Connections Director. Please be in prayer for Gale Bengtson, Shayna Dodd, Chris Kempf, Jen Stahl, and me as we meet to discuss our process and as we receive resumes. Take a look at our church profile, community profile, and job description at www.steamboatbaptist.org/jobs.
Over the past year, the Shepherding Team did a deep dive into what role would best fit our church next. After Pastor Vince left last year, we had so many volunteers willingly step in to help fill those holes. They have done a great job! But, we also knew at some point that those volunteer roles were big enough that backfilling a staff Connections role in some fashion was likely.
With that Connections Pastor position open, we didn’t want to overlook other staff needs that our Ministry Leadership Team and Shepherding Team have been discussing for several years, primarily in the area of youth ministry. I was able to have an outside consulting ministry (Ministry Architects) take a look at our youth numbers, our youth and church budget, and some other SRBC metrics. They concluded that while we were pretty close to a healthy staffing ratio for our Sunday AM attendance, our involvement and attendance in both Awana and our M.S./H.S. youth ministries left us understaffed in the area of youth ministry.
The job description in our newly defined Connections Director role helps bring leadership and support to both our Community Team (small groups, hospitality, new visitors, kitchen, and more) as well as filling some important gaps in our youth ministry, primarily in the areas of small groups, new student connection, and occasional teaching. As you can probably tell, the overlap of this hybrid role between the Community Team and Radiate Youth Ministries will help us continue to make connections at SRBC a priority while also helping us actively pursue our vision of Launching the Next Generation.
This is certainly an exciting next step for ministry at SRBC!
Blessings,
Pastor Bryce
