A Letter from Pastor Mark - June



Dear Friends,
During the month of May we had two town hall meetings for the purpose of sharing     information about new directions for staff at Southport United Methodist Church.  All of you should know that Pastor Chris Stephens has been appointed to be the lead pastor at Kendallville Trinity United Methodist Church.  Pastor Chris, Michelle and Robert’s last Sunday here at Southport UMC will be  June 14.  Pastor Chris will be preaching his final sermon at SUMC that week.  I encourage each of you to be present to hear that sermon and to express your appreciation for Pastor Chris’ ministry and to give him and his family a loving send-off.
As it was shared in the town hall meetings, Southport UMC will not receive another appointed pastor as an associate.  Instead we have hired a Director of Missional Outreach.  The person filling that position will be Jason Young.  Jason has served as the chairperson of the Leadership Team for several years and serves on several Central District and Annual Conference positions as well.  Jason is well-positioned to get up to speed regarding his new position very quickly.  Jason will begin full-time on July 1.  I invite each of you to welcome Jason and his family into the staff of Southport United Methodist Church.
The reason we are hiring a full-time lay person for this position instead of receiving an appointed pastor is that a lay person better fills the role of this new position.  Jason will be leading the church into new and cutting-edge styles of ministry that are not based around the traditional ways of “doing church.”  Seminary trained, appointed pastors are almost entirely focused on doing church from an institutional perspective.  What that means is that pastors are trained to do building centered ministry where the expectation is for people to come to us.  The kinds of ministry that Jason will be developing will be taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ into communities where people live and then allowing the church to “bubble-up” in those places with those people.  

The ministry Jason will be leading will be about extending the ministry of the church into the community and doing ministry among the people rather than expecting people to be attracted to something we are doing in a geographical location (our building) and therefore come to us.

This does not mean that we will never return to receiving an appointed pastor as an associate pastor.  It just means that right now it seems conducive to fill this position with a lay person rather than a traditionally trained and oriented pastor.
Again, I hope you will welcome Jason and his family onto the staff of the church.

In Christ’s Abundant Love,
Pastor Mark




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