Growing out of a conversation that Regional Ministers Steve Martin and Ken Marston had with the General Church New Ministries Director, Terrell McTyer, the Regional Board received and approved a proposal to prioritize New Church Ministries. This will be a three-year experiment that has three goals:
- to hire a Regional Minister of New Church Ministries
- to develop new and innovative ways to initiate new church ministries
- to start at least two new church ministries by June of 2023.
We will pay for this by utilizing an account of funds that has been growing for the last decade but has not been used. This fund currently has $683,600 in it. This money was given to start new church ministries in the region, and the regional board felt it was time we begin utilizing it for this purpose.
The first step in this experiment was to get the Regional Board approval for this idea. The second is to recruit a New Church Ministry Advisory Team who will do three things:
- help write the job description for the Regional Minister of New Church Ministries
- act as the search committee for this staff position
- help dream and advise about new and innovative ways of establishing new church ministries.