Pastor Search
Monday, May 14-
The pastor search team has been working diligently to process and pray through the top candidates. We have, at this point, been lead to focus on a primary man that we feel God leading us to pursue. Thank you all so much for your patience and for your prayers as we have gone through this process. There is nothing that we desire more than to be in God's will and to call the man that God has prepared for Erlanger Baptist Church. The pastor search team is still asking for your prayers and support as we continue to seek The Lord's direction.
Wednesday, March 14-
After receiving 455 resumes, the pastor search team has identified 57 candidates who best line up with Erlanger Baptist Church's identity and core values. We are trying to contact everyone who is no longer under primary consideration to this point and let them know. If you are still being considered, we hope to be in contact soon, in order to gather some more information and answer any questions you might have. Thank you for your patience. We are continuing to pray for The Lord's guidance and that all we do will be honoring and pleasing to Him.
Tuesday, March 6-
Thanks for your patience. As of last night the pastor search team has received over 451 resumes. We have been able to process 316 and have narrowed those down to 34 that are still under consideration. There are 135 resumes that are still under a preliminary screening. We are attempting to immediately contact candidates that are no longer under primary consideration via e-mail.
Thursday February 9-
Thank you for your prayerful interest in Erlanger Baptist Church and the possibility of God’s calling to serve as senior pastor here. We will use this tab as a means of communicating with potential candidates. We want to treat all candidates with honor and respect and we will attempt to communicate with you concerning our intended schedule of processing resumes.
First, if you have sent in a resume and have not received an acknowledgement of receipt, please contact us again. Second, we will be processing resumes as we receive them. Please understand the sheer number of resumes that we will receive. Our advertisement has been out for one week and we have received over 200 resumes!!
The pastor search team has a goal of completing an initial assessment of the resumes we have received so far by Monday February 20. At this time, some may be notified that you will no longer be under primary consideration. It is always difficult to receive such news, but we felt it would be better and more respectful to let you know sooner than later so that those candidates could seek God’s continued direction for their future ministry. For candidates still in the process, we will communicate through this space on our web site and we may make direct initial inquiries if there are some clarifying questions that will assist us in discerning if you continue to be a good match.
How can that be done so quickly? The team has developed a pastor profile based on a recent self-assessment of the church’s heritage and hopes. We have studied the church’s history, identity, core values and vision. This has assisted in developing a more focused profile. I know personally as a pastor the difficulty of being assessed by a piece of paper, but there are many core values, philosophy of ministry, education and experiences that assists us in making preliminary determinations.
One respondent to our advertisement shared his concern that we did not mention Jesus in our ad and that we spent some time describing our “country club” facilities and even suggested that we might even have a golf course! You certainly can learn some things even from critics. Hopefully the following explanations may help.
OUR MISSION STATEMENT:
“Erlanger Baptist Church is committed to introducing people to Jesus Christ and to developing His followers to Christ-like maturity.
OUR CORE VALUES:
In a recent congregational session, after a challenge to fast and pray, the Church came to confessional agreement that their aspiring values were to be an obedient people of prayer committed to proper Biblical knowledge and committed to worship God with all their heart soul, mind and strength.
There were also some confessional agreements that they had valued tradition and status quo way too much in recent times.
FACILITIES:
The reason for our focus on the facilities was to communicate two things: 1) The church has more than adequate facilities for immediate and rapid growth without concern for major building programs. And 2) for the discerning reader, the recognition that the church may have been running substantially higher in attendance at one time. Which brings us to an important phrase: “Turn around.”
HISTORY: ERLANGER BAPTIST CHURCH IS 120 YEARS OLD-
As we studied and were reminded about the heritage of the church we discovered several important foundation stones. The Church has always had it’s focus on the future. Through the years it has made strategic decisions of buying property surrounding the church; constantly improving its capacity for ministry. Second, it has always been willing to be on the cutting edge of ministry, willing to take risks and try new programs, start new ministries, and sponsor new work to fulfill the Great Commission. Third, it has not measured it’s success by it’s seating capacity, but by it’s sending capacity. It is a mission minded church, not only financially supporting mission work, but many members are now in full time Christian service serving as pastors, missionaries and working with para-church organizations.
The “hey-day” of the church was an 18-year period from 1983-2001 where the church grew to over 900 in average worship attendance and had a contemporary and traditional service.
After the departure of the long term pastor the church went through a period of two full time pastors and experienced decline that has plateaued around the 300 mark.
The church has made two important decisions.
When they were experiencing recent conflict they called in a peacemaking team that counseled, coached, and led mediation sessions. The pastor at that time eventually accepted a call to another church. During the interim period, the pastor search team unanimously called a transitional pastor to guide a period of time to restore health and vision to the church. For the past six months the church has participated in specific assessments of their heritage, their health and their hope.
Therefore, we wanted candidates to fully understand that this ministry will require maturity, leadership, experience and a specific passion to work with an existing ministry that has, in its recent past, experienced tremendous growth and tremendous loss. However, there is a heart and passion to see God’s desired future for this ministry to be one of faithful service to Him for His glory!
-Transitional Pastor Jim Poorboy
Tuesday, January 31-
Erlanger Baptist Church is seeking a Senior Pastor to lead this well-established Southern Baptist ministry. Erlanger is located in Northern Kentucky and is ten miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio. It offers a blend of suburban, urban, and rural influences.
The Church has recently completed a transitional process of self evaluation and preparation for a permanent pastor which included self study of our history, identity, core values, demographics, and God’s desired future for our ministry. The church is located on an entire city block and includes over 80,000 square feet of facilities. The church is equipped with a 600-seat sanctuary, fellowship hall, modern kitchen facilities, and a complete Christian Life Center with full gymnasium, two racket ball courts, weight room, and indoor walking track.
The church is a multi-ministry, multi-staff church that includes a preschool, children and youth ministries, various outreach ministries, and sponsors a Hispanic ministry and a deaf ministry that meets on campus.
If you are motivated and passionate about leading a turn-around church to fulfill God’s vision, then please send your resume to pastorsearch-ebc@insightbb.com.
Some helpful links:
