by Geoff Gehring
Greetings to you from the Associate Pastor Nominating Committee (APNC). You haven’t heard from us since November 2020, so it has been a while! The group has continued to meet at least monthly to faithfully recruit and assess candidates for the Associate Pastor position.
Our initial timeline was to secure a candidate that could start by January 2021, but the COVID-19 pandemic made the interested and eligible options limited. We had a round of strong candidates that were in final interviews during February and March, but none were able to advance forward into a formal calling. Since that time, we continue to source candidates from the Church Leadership Connection with 97 new matches or referrals since our last report; plus, we are using other contacts throughout the country to make connections.
This committee has been together since our formal calling by the congregation in the summer of 2019. As a reminder, the APNC Members are: Geoff Gehring (Chair), Amy Hehn (Co-Chair), Doug Keim, Henry Knapp, Bill Martin, David Mills, Kristy Tomashewski, Steve Sanders, and Lona Wilson. Steff Knabe had to vacate her role this summer and she will be greatly missed! Thank you, Steff, for your two years of laboring with us.
Please be assured that the APNC is not just looking to fill the position at this point in the process, even though the target date has passed. Our committee continues to prayerfully ask the Lord for His wisdom over our discernment. We trust in His perfect timing and know that He is working in the heart of our next Associate Pastor to prepare him for the calling at Hebron Church.
The APNC’s next meeting is on August 30th at 7:00 PM. We ask that you pray for us during that meeting and for our routine meetings on the first Monday of the month. May God be glorified through the work of this committee and the next calling of the Associate Pastor.
