We are excited to announce a new staff re-organization to help us better accomplish our goal of making greater numbers of disciples for Christ. Jesus gave the command: Go and make disciples. It is our heart to be as effective as possible at accomplishing that assignment. I believe the re-organization step we are taking will serve that end.

Churches grow through small groups. Worship and preaching are important; in fact, they are critical parts of a church, but long-term, sustained growth and the work of making disciples cannot happen simply through inspirational worship and Bible-based messages. People need to connect with other believers. They need to be encouraged, challenged, loved, prayed-for, and nourished. These important relational connections can only happen in small groups. 

Our church has a legacy of effective ministry through small groups, what we call Sunday School. Some of the strongest growth our church has experienced through the years has been a result of a commitment to a gospel-centered, outreach-focused Sunday School.

We want to increase our investment in Sunday School. We want to give Sunday School the emphasis and attention it needs to be the leading edge of our growth strategy. We want to see Sunday School become our best tool for disciple making and life-change. But to do this, we need a minister to focus a major part of his time and energy on this ministry. A growth-focused Sunday School doesn’t just happen. It has to be created, encouraged, and shepherded.

I have asked Mark McLendon, who has served as our Executive Pastor, to take over this area of ministry. I’ve asked Mark to be our adult Sunday School leader. Since my arrival as pastor two years ago, David Reed, our youth minister, has managed our Sunday School. This was not a part of his original assignment. David simply stepped up to fill a hole created by some staff changes. David has done a good job keeping our Sunday School strong, but David cannot give the time that is needed for our Sunday School to go to the next level. We want David focused on youth ministry, and David wants to focus on youth ministry. So this handing of the baton from David to Mark is welcomed by both men and will be a smooth transition. 

Mark will continue to lead in many of the ministries where he currently leads. He will continue to be the coordinator of our ministries. He will continue to be the primary pastor to adults. He will continue to be the point person for our church and community. Mark will also continue to lead senior adult ministries, women’s ministry, and the discipleship ministries he has been doing.

We are changing Mark’s title to better describe his new responsibilities. Mark is now our Associate Pastor of Ministries.

To facilitate this change, we have decided to bring on a church administrator to handle some of the tasks that Mark has previously managed. The church administrator, a non-ministry position, will lead our church finances, our physical plant, our support staff, and many of the administrative aspects of our ministries. The church administrator will make all aspects of our church and our ministries more effective.

We have discussed this new staff addition with our Personnel Committee, our Budget and Finance committee, and our deacon officers. Everyone is on board. We believe this addition is going to be an important step in our commitment to make more and more disciples. 

As we have been working on this transition in recent weeks, we began to pray and look around for someone the Lord might have for us for this important new position. The Lord brought to my mind a young man in our church that seemed to have all the qualities and faithfulness we were looking for. His name is Jeff Thompson. 

Jeff Thompson 

Jeff is a faithful member and servant in our church. (You will see him playing violin in the 9:00 orchestra each week.) He and his wife Jessica have two preschool boys, Benjamin and Matthew. Jeff is currently the senior safety officer at SFA with administrative responsibilities focused on compliance, safety, continuity planning, insurance, and special projects. Jeff is just six credit hours away from completing his Masters of Business Administration (MBA), and he holds an undergraduate degree from Texas A&M where he completed the Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets Leadership Program. Jeff is a “Texas Certified Public Manager.” He is also certified as an Active Shooter/Hostile Event Response Program Specialist. Additionally he is a National Fire Protection Association Certified Fire Inspector. Jeff is also a leader in a Rotary program that teaches leadership principles and practices to teens in East Texas. More importantly, Jeff loves the Lord and has a heart to serve the Lord by serving the local church.

I have spent much time with Jeff through through this process of consideration. Three of our personnel committee members have also interviewed Jeff. Together we recommend Jeff to our church and believe he is a perfect fit for our needs. 

Jeff and Jessica are excited about the possibility of this new chapter in their lives.

Technically, according to our church constitution, it is not necessary for us to have a church vote to establish and fill this position. In the future, we will likely take a more simplified approach and follow the letter of the constitution, but out of an abundance of care and to help ensure unity with this transition, we have decided to ask the church this Sunday (3/24) to approve Jeff Thompson and the position of Church Administrator. This will be a red-letter day in our church!

Pastor Noel