Text From Gregg’s Video Message

On Sunday, September 21st the Elder Board presented Britt Sipe to the Sunridge congregation as the Lead Pastor candidate.  (Click here to view the presentation and Britt’s response.)  If you were not able to be there, I recorded a video message that quickly recapped our process over the last several months.  Following is the text from that video message…

I. INTRO

1. GOOD MORNING SUNRIDGE!
2. If you’re a guest with us this morning, my name is Gregg and for the last 15-months I have served Sunridge as the Intentional Interim Lead Pastor.
3. My role has primarily been that of a Pastoral Coach and I have worked with four overlapping teams:
   • In addition to our high functioning Staff Team 
   • Our humble yet courageous Eldership Team …
   • We launched a Transition Team about one year ago that met weekly for seven months to encourage church-wide participation in addressing some strategic recommendations from the diagnostic assessment that was conducted here (those recommendations can be found here).
   • More recently, the Search Team began meeting in Feb and concluded its work at the end of Aug.

II. BODY

1. From the beginning each of these teams began to dream, pray, and talk about the gift mix, experience, and qualities that Sunridge was looking for in the next lead pastor. On every team we agreed that it was going to take a very gifted and unique person.
2. Additionally, last Feb we invited the whole church to give input in a follow-up online survey that we used to develop the emerging profile of the person we were looking for. Here are the main points of what you said you want:
   • You said you want a Bible preacher who approaches teaching the Bible systematically. You also want that preaching to be practical, focusing on what people need in order to grow in their Christian faith.
   • You strongly said you want a people-person who is interested in helping people, and who is genuinely enthusiastic without being manipulative.
   • You said you wanted a strong leader who will truly lead the church, but who is also a team player.
   • You said you wanted a pastor who is a careful planner and who has the gift of Administration (i.e., not just keeping a calendar but strategic thinking and systems development that sees and prayerfully begins to make long-range plans with input from the other elders, staff, ministry leaders, and you as the congregation).
   • You also said if he has experience overseeing a large budget that would be a bonus.

III. CONCLUSION

1. With your input the elders, staff, and then the Search Team began to prayerfully solidify a pastoral profile made up of both non-negotiables as well as a preferred candidate gift-mix, skill-sets, and experience.
2. I am very pleased to inform you this morning that out of all the candidate packets we received and all the interviews that were conducted – both online and in person, there was only one candidate that fulfilled all of our non-negotiable gift-mix, skill-set, and experience requirements.
3. And he is the candidate that the Elders are presenting to you today.
4. So with that, I’d like to pass this on to Mr. Brian Purvis who is the Chairman of our Elder Board…