Pastor Susan to Retire in December

(This post has been updated on Thursday, July 6 to reflect a change in the search committee election process).  

    Susan Sosebee, Pastor for Children's Discipleship, has announced she will be retiring from her current role by the end of this year.  We are very thankful for Susan who has served on our church staff for 26 years.

    Pastor Susan has taught and discipled children, has mentored young people in children's ministry, and has coordinated the work of hundreds of volunteers and paid staff for several generations of kids.  She, and her husband Danny, have worked hard but mostly they have loved on our children well.

    She has already experienced the joy of welcoming the children of young parents who were children under her ministry.  Heaven will tell of the hundreds of little, and not so little, lives that have been impacted with the gospel and have become disciples and disciple-makers.

    In addition to children's ministry with its weekly teaching, VBS, kidz camp, and ministry to parents, Susan has been a part of our pastoral team offering wisdom and insight, has officiated weddings, funerals, baptisms and the Lord's Supper.  She also has been a point person in coordinating pastoral care through our deacon body for our elderly, widows, and homebound, loving them as she does the children.

    Susan's last day is scheduled to be December 31.  So she will continue to minister fully the rest of the summer and through the fall semester.  She has also agreed to allow us to begin the search process of a new Children's Pastor so that the transition can be smooth, with which she is glad to assist.

    For that reason we are announcing nominations* for a search committee for the Children's Discipleship Pastor next Sunday, July 9 at 10:45 AM; 12:15 PM and 1:45 PM (after each of our Sunday gatherings).  Subsequently, on July 23 we will provide a ballot for the election with the qualifying names submitted by members on July 9.

    Our bylaws stipulate that,

The search committee shall consist of five (5) members each.

1. Each member of the committee shall have been a member of the church for at least one (1) year at the time the committee is formed.
2. Employees of the church and their immediate families shall not be eligible to serve on the committee.
3. The committee will consist of no fewer than two (2) men and no fewer than two (2) women.
4. The men and women receiving the highest number of votes shall constitute the Staff Search Committee.
5. Election shall be by secret ballot at a business meeting.

The business meeting to select the search committee shall be announced at all worship services the Sunday before the business meeting, and by mail to all the membership.

 

   Please come prepared next Sunday to nominate people for this committee*.  Mostly we ask that you pray for this search process, for Pastor Susan as she continues to minister and for her future ministry, and for our children's ministry in general.

    Although there will be an appropriate time to do farewells, this is not the time to do so.  The reason we make this announcement now is to start the search process, not to bid farewell to Susan.  We still have six months to work together and focus on making disciples of children and their families, (and to celebrate Susan's ministry and transition at the proper time).

*This blog post has been edited to reflect a two-step process for the (1) nominations and (2) election of the search committee.  Although our bylaws do not require a two-step process, they do not prohibit it either.  Since we failed to announce it in all worship services on July 2, as our bylaws require it, the plan is now to: (1) receive nominations on Sunday, July 9 and (2) to hold elections on Sunday, July 23.