Fortunately, this is one of the easiest questions to answer. No church depends on one person and never should. We have an excellent staff that will continue to function just fine in my absence under the leadership of our associate pastor, Broc Jahnke. We are blessed with several very capable teachers who will speak in our Sunday services. The change of pace will be good for us and help us all appreciate that God uses different people in different ways. And we should not forget that, biblically speaking, elders are pastors and the leaders of our church. Our ministry rests on the efforts of many people and a pastor’s sabbatical is a good opportunity to rediscover that truth.
In addition, this is an excellent opportunity for our church to be reminded of why we have pastors. Unlike the traditional model where pastors exist to do the work of the ministry, we have adopted the model of Ephesians 4: 11-12 which makes it clear that pastors exist to prepare the people of the church to do the work of the ministry. During this sabbatical, for a brief period, we’ll be short one ministry coach. But at our Fellowship, each one of us is a minister charged by Jesus with the task of taking care of each other. I have great confidence that you’ll all continue to do the work of the ministry well in my absence.
