Youth Pastor Position Filled

After several months of prayer and searching, our church has called Tim Moses to be our youth pastor. He is married to Ashlee, and they have a precious girl named Sadie. We are excited about Tim joining our team on October 3, and we look forward to how God is going to use him.

I want to thank all of the candidates for their interest in our youth pastor position. I hope this process and blog site were helpful to you as you journeyed with us. We trust that the Lord has a place of ministry for each of you.

Mark Smith, Pastor of FBC Jacksonville, AR

August Update

I apologize that I have not posted anything sooner. The past few weeks have been a blur as we moved much faster than what I anticipated. As we prayed and read over the questionnaires we narrowed our search to four candidates.  Those who we did not move forward with were emailed and thanked for their responses.

As we interviewed the remaining candidates, it became clear to our committee that one of those young men was the one we knew God was calling to work alongside us here. We contacted those we interviewed by phone to inform them of our decision. I will admit making those types of phone calls are the part of my job I hate the most. I know they are difficult to receive as well. I have been there many times.

At this time I will not post the young man's name because he is currently serving in a church. We are announcing him to our church this Sunday, August 28. He and his family will join us in view of a call September 16-18. We appreciate your prayers as we are winding down this part of the process.

Mark Smith, Pastor of FBC Jacksonville

July Update

Over the past few months, we have received hundreds of worthy resumes. It was obvious as we read through them that many would be qualified to serve here alongside us at FBC. At this point, our committee has completed the step of sifting through the resumes to 15 candidates that we are working to learn more about. Each of those received a questionnaire earlier this week via email.

Unfortunately, this means that many candidates who have been interested in our search will not be able to move forward in the search process. Honestly, this part of the process is hard. I know many of you desire to serve the Lord, and we believe that God has a place for you. I have been in your shoes more times than I can count, and it can often be disappointing, disheartening, and feel like rejection. I hope you remember that we are seeking the Lord to discover whom God has for us. Therefore, it means you are the person God has chosen for another opportunity.

After we review the questionnaires, we will interview 3-5 candidates. Our hope is to begin that part of our search in early August. Thank you for your prayers as we continue to seek the Lord's will in who He desires to serve here with us.

Mark Smith, Pastor of FBC Jacksonville

Our Process

I indicated in the previous post that I would post the process we will be following in searching for a youth pastor. I wanted to quickly write about what we are currently doing, as well as our process going forward.

First, our youth pastor search committee has met several times in the past couple of months. We have spent our time implementing our process, evaluating the needs of our church and community, listing qualities we desire in a youth pastor, meeting with parents and students to hear their feedback on what they are looking for, beginning to review resumes, and doing lots of praying. These things take time, and we want to make sure we are never behind or in front of what God is doing. On an additional note, I want to let you know that many of our committee have traveling plans for the remainder of the summer. Obviously, this will slow our process, and our search may take longer than originally thought.

This is our plan, but we also understand that sometimes God intervenes and does things differently than our plan. As a committee, we are open to any step in this process God may change along the way. Here are the steps we are planning on taking:

1. Collect resumes (last day for resumes will be July 15, 2016)
2. Evaluate resumes (this step is already underway)
3. Narrow search to 10-15 candidates
4. Candidates will respond to a questionnaire
5. Narrow search to 3-5 candidates
6. 1st Skype interview
7. Theological interview with pastor
8. Narrow search to 1 candidate
9. 2nd Skype interview
10. Present candidate to church (this will include an entire weekend with scheduled activities)

As always, we invite you to be in prayer with us as we seek God's will in this matter.

Mark Smith, Pastor of FBC Jacksonville

Intro Post for FBC Youth Pastor Search

Welcome to the search for FBC Jacksonville's Youth Pastor. My hope is to post here regularly to keep you updated about how our search is progressing. I can tell you that at this point we will be collecting resumes through July 15. In the near future, I will post the process we will follow to help us discover who God is calling to join with our ministry team. We are anticipating a significant number of resumes that will prohibit us from contacting every individual who submits a resume. Our goal with this blog is to keep you informed of where we are in the process so you will know whether or not you have made it the next stage.

We are already praying that God will direct us to the right person for this position. I hope you will join us in praying for clarity, wisdom, and discernment throughout this process. In the meantime, you are welcome to visit our website at www.fbcgo.com to get a better feel of who we are. If you have not submitted a resume and would like to, you can email it to fbcgo2016@gmail.com.

Mark Smith, Pastor of FBC Jacksonville