Friday, February 16, 2007

Preacher Search

As most of you know, we've been without a preacher since the middle of September. What you may not know is that things at Eastside have been going remarkably well. The kinds of things that often happen during times a church does not have a preacher (attendance flagging, contribution going down, ministry grinding to a halt) just haven't happened. Our attendance and contribution have at least held steady... we had our largest crowds since last Easter one Sunday in December and a couple of weeks ago. More important than all that is the spirit of the people. I know most are looking forward to having a regular preacher again, but there is such a good attitude... such a positive and Spirit-led outlook. It's been a blessing to everyone.

Well, we have received a bunch of resumes, and our elders asked seven of our members representing a cross section of the congregation to serve as an initial screening team to prayerfully narrow the list to 5 or 6 guys who seem to be a good fit for us. After a couple of weeks praying over and wrestling with the resumes, we had our meeting tonight, and it was... well... I guess you'd call it a spiritual experience. It was really neat to see how God worked through our diversity to craft a unified result... just special.

I have no idea what the next steps will look like or who will eventually join our ministry team at Eastside, but I gotta say that we're off to a God start.

No comments: