Thats awesome that Josh has accepted the position of pastor. Sounds like he will do very well. Its hard in todays world to find a good pastor that preaches from the bible. Congratulations to you, and Josh. What is the average attendance in your church?
We have a new pastor also that was an elder who stepped up to the podium. He preaches strictly from the bible. We have separated from the EPC and become non denominational. Our numbers have improved, but are still struggling from post covid era. We are getting 25 to 30 each Sunday. The biggest problem is our church is in a small old mining town, and the people there are set in their ways. They are people that moved there for work when the area had a lot of coal mining. Mostly elderly people, and is mostly Catholics as there is a catholic church in town.
Glad to see you have chosen a new pastor. The beauty of electing one of your own elders, is that you already know his background, his education, family and desire
to stay strictly by scripture.
This is not Josh, but his younger brother Josiah. Josh is still working for NATO, down in Missouri..
What with so many major denominations now breaking up, the trend seems to be toward non-denominational, which ours also is. As I see it, denomination is not so important as to how closely one sticks to scripture. We have our handbook, the Bible..and it only needs to be exposited.
One class of non-denominational churches that are not prospering now, are the mega churches that either affirm sin, or preach a social or "prosperity" gospel.
I really believe that there are many out there who are searching for the smaller church, which is preaching the word..as written.
Our local church has about 65-70 regular attending adults, and related children.. A fair mix, but would like more of the younger families, and perhaps the younger preacher will appeal to them.
We are going to seek out fathers/husbands. Stats say that if a mother attends regularly, something like half their children will also attend, whereas if the Dad attends
the children's attendance rates go up exponentially.
We are an elder led church, just as those described in the book of Acts were. As Josiah reiterated in his message, he as pastor is no dictator, but the one on the board of elders, who will do the greater share of the preaching, counselling and performing weddings, funerals etc.
We seek to cooperate with other Bible believing churches, rather than think of them as "competition".
There are plenty out there who need salvation, so competing is a moot [point !
