PSC Update - May 2024

Here is a written update of the activities of the Pastor Search Committee that was presented to the church during the first Sunday in May. We would like all members to be informed, so this is for the benefit of those who were not present in the congregation when it was delivered.

The committee continues to meet weekly and work daily on the task of finding the next pastor for Redland Baptist Church. This update will be a little different than previous ones - first, we want to take you on a journey over the past year to give insight into the work of the committee; next, we will provide some stats for those who are number-oriented; and lastly, we have an important announcement.

Since April of last year, the committee has worked tirelessly on the tasks for which we were called - primarily to find both an Interim Pastor as well as the permanent pastor to replace Pastor Mark Adams. In May of 2023, we drafted, and got approved, the job description for the Interim Pastor role and created our own internal guidelines on confidentiality. By the summer, we had developed a church profile, created the first of two prayer guides, and had talked to key leaders in our state and local conventions as well as leaders in the church who had served on previous search committees. We held meetings with the chair of the deacons, and the chairs of the finance and personnel committees. The fall of 2023 saw us develop and roll out a church-wide survey which was taken by 168 of you; the results of which were shown to the church during a specially-called business meeting in November. All throughout this time, we were interacting with interested candidates for both the Interim and permanent roles, explaining to them who Redland is, what we were looking for, and where we were in the process.

January and February were spent having individual discussions with our current church staff, both ministerial and other, to get their unique insights on how their roles interact with the pastor as well as to see what was working well and any areas that they felt changes were needed. Once all of that was done, we were able to fine-tune the pastor job description and bring it before the church for discussion, revision, and vote in March. Based on the approved changes to add "denominations of like-faith", the committee then had to research which denominations and seminaries were truly "of like-faith". Upon that determination, we were able to post the approved job description for pastor in mid-April with more than 20 national, state, and local conventions, seminaries, Christian universities, job boards, and one paid church recruitment website. To date, we have received more than 30 applications for the permanent pastor role.

To add a few numbers to this update:

• The committee has held 60 meetings.
• The committee has worked approximately 3,300 person-hours in meetings, prayer, research, and resume/sermon review.
• The committee has listened to an estimated 220 sermons.
• The committee has interacted with nearly 100 interested candidates for the two roles combined.

Now to the announcement... the committee is excited to announce that Pastor Mark Edwards, who preached here on April 21, will be preaching again on May 19 in view of a call for the Interim Pastor role. There will be a specially-called business meeting on June 9 to discuss this and a churchwide vote on June 16 to decide whether to call him as our Interim Pastor.

As you can see, the committee has been hard at work and will continue to press on diligently to the finish line in this process.

Thank you for your prayers and support,
Your Pastor Search Committee