Last night in Bethel’s quarterly family meeting, an official process was adopted by the church and assigned to the Deacons, who were elected to serve as the Pastor Search Committee. All of the decisions made were unanimous. Bethel has begun the process of seeking God’s leader on firm footing! What follows is the process that was adopted…
Electing a Pulpit Fill Committee
The pulpit fill committee will be responsible for the filling of the pulpit during worship services. This committee may collect names of potential speakers and schedule them. They are authorized to compensate supply preachers at $100 per service and to pay any travel expenses incurred. This committee may also decide to recommend a man as Interim Pastor, which would be voted on by the congregation with one week’s notice.
It should be noted that the role of an Interim Pastor is not merely to preach, but to minister to the congregation, assume the roll of the pulpit fill committee in filling the puplit during services, and assisting the Pastor Search Committee in an advisory role.
How Candidates Are Processed
1. The Search Committee may solicit recommendations of potential Pastors from within and outside of the congregation, and they may also solicit resumes via the church website, BMAA papers, and other news outlets.
2. Resumes may be evaluated and acted upon immediately. Sometimes quality candidates may have only a short period of availability. Resumes will be screened by the committee in absolute confidence.
3. If the Search Committee feels led together to contact a particular candidate, they should appoint one member of the committee to contact that candidate to arrange a meeting. If they are already highly and unanimously confident in the candidate, he may be invited for a weekend that would include a committee interview, informal meetings (not interviews) with the staff, and preaching to the congregation during a worship service.
4. At no point should the staff officially interview the man who may be their next Pastor, and at no point should the entire congregation interview a Pastor. All screening is the responsibility of the pulpit committee.
5. Before a candidate may be presented to the congregation for a vote, the following criteria must be met:
i. A resume must be in the possession of the committee.
ii. Verification of the candidate’s ordination or lack thereof must be satisfied.
iii. The committee must feel unanimously that this candidate could very well be the next Pastor God has in mind for the church.
iv. References should be contacted.
v. A salary package should be discussed by the Pulpit Committee (discussed later) and agreed upon with the candidate.
6. When all of this screening process has been completed and the Search Committee is in full agreement to present the candidate to the church, the candidate should be invited to preach “in view of a call.” One week before the candidate arrives for his appointment, the congregation should receive a written report (one page or so) from the pulpit committee about their findings, a copy of the candidate’s resume, and the detailed salary package and agreement.
7. Unless the church decides otherwise, they will vote on a candidate the very Sunday evening he preaches. At this point, the candidate most likely feels it is God’s will to come, and the Search Committee feels it is God’s man for the position. An 80% “yes” vote is required to call a candidate as Pastor.
*** NO CANDIDATE SHOULD EVER BE INVITED TO PREACH IN VIEW OF A CALL WHOM THE SEARCH COMMITTEE CANNOT WHOLEHEARTEDLY RECOMMEND AS PASTOR.
*** THE COMMITTEE WILL NEVER PRESENT MORE THAN ONE CANDIDATE AT A TIME AS THE POTENTIAL NEXT PASTOR TO BE HEARD IN VIEW OF A CALL.
More updates will follow as the Search Committee reports regularly with the congregation. Please pray for the Deacons as they carry out this enormous task under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
Sunday, July 4, will be Pastor Brandon’s final sermon at Bethel after four and a half years of ministry. He has accepted a position on the pastoral staff of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. In his new role, he’ll be connecting with Pastors across the country and around the world to provide resources and encouragement.
During his tenure at Bethel, he preached through over a dozen books of the Bible as the church added many new families and added multiple staff. He will continue writing at Life Here and There. You can stay in touch with Brandon via email.
More will be posted concerning Bethel’s pastoral search process very soon. Please pray for Pastor Brandon and his family as they make this move across the country to a new field of ministry.
Beginning June 13, 2010, Bethel will be moving back to one unified morning worship service. Sunday School will be at 10:00 a.m. and the morning service will be at 10:45 a.m. All other services will remain the same as well. We look forward to having the whole church family worshiping in unity together again!
One of the values we hold dear at Bethel is the precious value of the local church to the lives of Christian believers. Last night I had the opportunity to share with a sister church (First Baptist Church in Garfield, Arkansas) about this subject as part of their annual Bible Conference, Encourage University. The entire week focused on the local church and I was privileged to speak about the church’s holiness.
I grew up in a small and very traditional church in south central Kentucky. It wasn’t perfect. I could share stories that would make us laugh and others that could bring us to tears, but in that church I watched godly men lead. My memory of them motivates me even now to remain faithful to God. It was there that I heard the gospel that made an eternal difference in my life. It was there, even as a kid, that I first thought about preaching someday.
So the local church, with all of its imperfections, is precious. Bill Hybels said this about it…
There is nothing like the local church when it’s working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. It comforts the grieving and heals the broken… It builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused. It provides resources for those in need and opens its arms to the forgotten, the downtrodden, and the disillusioned… Whatever the capacity for human suffering, the church has a greater capacity for healing and wholeness… the radical message of transforming love has been given to the church.
~ Bill Hybels, Courageous Leadership
In Browning, Kentucky, where I grew up, there was a store, a fire station, and several churches. There are places in the world today where you won’t find a post office or grocery store, but you’ll find a church or three. This is of God.
We Need the Local Church as a Place to Belong
God wants you to be a part of His family, and if you’re a part of His family, He wants you to be a part of a local church family. In fact, a believer without a church family is like an orphan. All believers will live forever with Jesus as family. Church is the practice run where we learn to relate to people who are often very different than ourselves.
We Need the Local Church as a Place to Grow
God intended not only that we be students of Jesus through His Word, but that we do this in the context of a community of believers. Whether small groups or Sunday School, every believer needs a group of fellow disciples with whom to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We Need the Local Church as a Place to Serve
The Great Commission is our task, and the local church is the institution Jesus started to accomplish this task. I don’t know about you, but I love the fact that God has invited me, a sinner, to take part in extending the message of His holiness, love, and grace to the furthest reaches of the planet. I can’t do that alone – I need to join hands with fellow church members.
Jesus died for the church. He derives glory when the church functions according to His plan and pattern. God never intended for you to be a lone ranger believer. He wants you in a local church family, committed and serving.
The church has its faults. It’s made up of a diversity of human beings made of flesh. It’s tough sometimes. But when all is working right, there’s nothing like the local church!
This past Sunday night was a very special time for Bethel, and for Justin Williams, whom we ordained to ministry.
A ordination is our way of simply recognizing and affirming God’s call on someone’s life to ministry. It consists of ordained men (both Deacons and Pastors) gathering to “approve” a young man for the task of ministry by questioning him, then laying hands on him and praying over his life and ministry as well as preaching a charge to him and to the listening congregation.
Justin has been serving at Bethel as Youth Pastor for about a year and a half now. We’re honored to have him and his zeal at work for our ministry!
Two and a half years ago, we began a very exciting journey at Bethel. I began preaching through all of the Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation. I did this because of several core beliefs:
The Word of God, in its entirety, is a sufficient guide for the church’s health and growth, teaching and message. It’s God’s whole counsel to us as a community of faith.
The Word of God, in its entirety, is more than sufficient to grow us as God’s people into spiritual maturity.
We’ve dealt with the hard subjects of creation and the fall of humanity into sin and depravity. We’ve watched the formation of God’s chosen nation of Isreal in Abraham and the prophets. We journeyed with Moses and the Israelites through the wilderness and saw Joshua lead them with courage into the possession of the promised land. And we have seen their spiritual roller coaster ride through the book of Judges, paralleling in many respects our own times.
Now, we’ve come to a major transition in the Bible. We’re changing from judges to kings and watching the entire leadership structure shift. We’re going to see how God worked behind the scenes to bring some of history’s greatest leaders to the forefront of His stage.
This is the historical section of the Bible and one of my own beliefs is that history is his story. It’s all of Him, the Author of Creation, time, and eternity. Everything you’ve experienced in your life to this moment is history for you – the story of what God has been doing behind the scenes and what you’ve been doing in cooperation with Him (or in rebellion against Him). What does the next chapter look like for you?
God gave His Son that you might be redeemed from lostness and live a life full of promise and purpose. I want to invite you to join us in our journey through the Word this Sunday, but I also (and more importantly) want to urge you to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ if you don’t have one now. Turn from your sins and trust Him as Savior, and please contact us to let us know how we can help you!
Northwest Arkansas is a region in need, along with many other areas across the United States, so we’ve taken seriously the call to reach out to the particular need of hunger. Tonight, Studio412, the youth ministry of First Baptist Church in Bentonville joined with us and blessed us tremendously!
They had called us last week to ask that we bring our church van to their parking lot this evening to await the delivery of some food items that their teens would be collecting in neighborhoods as part of their DiscipleNow weekend. We were blown away as their 37 teams made drop after drop to bring in a total of at least 11,173 food items!!
We had to call in some reinforcements to meet us at the church to unload everything. You can watch the slideshow to the right to see pictures of the whole event. Our Fellowship Hall is filled!
Thanks so much to Studio412, FBC Bentonville, and especially to our awesome God who has so richly provided for the Storehouse. Know someone in need? Send them our way on any Tuesday, 9:00 am – 12:00 noon.
It is that time of the year again…Awana time! Our kids are heading back to school, or in some cases just starting for the first time. It is a time of excitement and yet of anxiousness. In other words, many unknowns exist for kids when it comes to starting a new school year, such as: “What teacher will I have?”, “Will I make new friends?”, “How well will I do?”….(Although I believe the latter question applies to parents rather than the kids). It is this time of year and these types of questions that present us with the reality that we do not know what the future holds. Plain and simple, we just don’t know what God has in store for each of us tomorrow or even the next five minutes! Read more of this article »
One of the most well-known Psalms is 96:10, “Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” Life needs rhythm, and we live in a society that sprints toward the finish line with little downtime. This culture has invaded church life, giving us the mistaken impression that business is next to godliness.
At Bethel, during the month of August, we’re going to combat that trend with a special challenge. Read more of this article »
Several times per year, Bethel gives away shoes for free. We’ll be doing this in preparation for school’s starting up again on Saturday, August 8 from 9 am until 11 am or until we run out of shoes. Anyone may come and receive a free pair of shoes, but every recipient must be present. If you’d like to give, we could really use kids’ tennis shoes more than anything else. To help in some way, call us at 479-273-2759 or contact us online.
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Sunday, July 4, will be Pastor Brandon’s final sermon at Bethel after four and a half years of ministry. He has accepted a position on the pastoral staff of 
This past Sunday night was a very special time for Bethel, and for Justin Williams, whom we ordained to ministry.
It is that time of the year again…Awana time! Our kids are heading back to school, or in some cases just starting for the first time. It is a time of excitement and yet of anxiousness. In other words, many unknowns exist for kids when it comes to starting a new school year, such as: “What teacher will I have?”, “Will I make new friends?”, “How well will I do?”….(Although I believe the latter question applies to parents rather than the kids). It is this time of year and these types of questions that present us with the reality that we do not know what the future holds. Plain and simple, we just don’t know what God has in store for each of us tomorrow or even the next five minutes!
