Dear Friends and Members of Peninsula Bible Fellowship:

This is an exciting time in the life of our church. We are beginning a new chapter with Brent James, our new lead pastor. In the next few weekends we will be baptizing individuals into new faith in Christ, and we will be welcoming home one of our many missionaries from the field to hear stories of God's faithfulness. There is so much for us to be thankful for as a body as we enter this Thanksgiving season.

As exciting a time as this is, there are also some areas that need serious prayer and attention. As you might have noticed in recent bulletin announcements, our financial giving as not kept pace with budgeted expenses. We, your elders, have been monitoring this situation closely and have been prayerfully considering how to respond to this situation and to the economic realities that many are having to adjust to. In our deliberations, we always strive to be transparent with you about our current reality and how that affects the decisions we need to prayerfully make about the future.

We currently are running a 12 percent deficit for the 2011 budget, roughly 110,000.00 That number may seem shocking to you. You should know that every year we receive greater end of the year giving that helps us make some of the shortfall. In fact, at the beginning of October there were some signs that we were positioned to be able to meet our budgeted obligations. Unfortunately our October giving was also below expectations and we must begin to prudently and prayerfully deal with the financial reality we find ourselves in. We also need to finalize a budget for 2012, one that is rooted firmly in faith but also grounded in wisdom. We felt duty bound to share this information with you and to give you a chance to respond.

The truth is, without a substantial change in giving, every area of our church's life will be affected; support for our missions partners and PBF ministry programming will be cut, and unfortunately, due to the percentage of the personnel budget in relationship to the overall budget, we will also have to make reductions in our church's staff. Everything within us resists making these changes with so much wonderful ministry that's currently happening. But we simply can't continue to spend more than we take in and we won't.

What can you do? How can you respond? First, pray! We believe that we serve a God who is able to do more than we can ask or imagine. Pray that God will use PBF in a powerful way to bless the people of the Kitsap peninsula and that He will provide the resources needed to accomplish the work. Secondly, give (if you are able)! If you are able to give more during this season of ministry, there has never been a greater need. If you haven't given in the past, please prayerfully consider giving now. We recognize that many are financially hurting during this economic downturn and the last thing we want to do is add guilt to the hurt. If you're simply unable to give more - please recognize your limits. Finally, trust! This is God's church! We will weather the storm, and we can and must adapt to the circumstances of our provision. We believe that all we have need of God's hand will provide. He is faithful and true.

May the peace of Christ guard your hearts,
The Elders

PBF Senior Pastor Roles in Relation to the Elders

Topic: Should the Senior Pastor at PBF serve on and lead the Elder Board? Should Associate Pastor(s) or other Staff members serve on the Elder Board?

Position of the PBF Board of Elders: The Elder Board is composed of the lay elders and the Senior Pastor. Associate Pastors or other staff members will not serve as Elders, but may be invited to participate with the elders in strategic planning. The Senior Pastor serves as the leader of the Elder Board, and is accountable to the lay Elders.

Senior Pastor Role. The role of Senior Pastor consists of the following duties and responsibilities:

Develop and Implement the vision of the church, with counsel and support from the Elder board.
Lead and shepherd the elders
Lead and shepherd the staff.
Lead in planning and execution of worship services and at Congregational gatherings.
Oversee Finance and Missions Committee chairmen (presently serving as Missions chairman).
Maintain an assimilation strategy.
Perform miscellaneous duties as needed: weddings, funerals, counseling, representing PBF, etc.

Discussion: Our belief is that the Senior Pastor has been called by God and the congregation to lead and provide direction for the Elders and together with them, for the church. The basis for this belief is that the Pastor has both the time and training necessary for the role. He is immersed in the problems and opportunities full-time and usually knows the people and organization very well. In addition, his education, experience, and network of fellow pastors provide him with a unique wealth of information from which to draw.

Every group or organization needs leadership that the group cannot provide for itself as a group. In other words, committees do not lead, leaders lead. And vision and leadership is what the Senior Pastor has been hired to provide. To establish any other Elder with this role is to needlessly confuse and set the two in competition with each other. It would also ask the lay elder to duplicate the knowledge, experience, and investment the Senior Pastor already has made.

A related concern may be whether a strong leader can be controlled. Some people believe that strong leadership and domination are synonymous. Of course this could just as easily be a problem for a lay elder leading the Elders or an Elder Board. Installing policies that provide checks and balances is a realistic response to this concern. Following are policies adhered to by the Elder Board to keep leaders healthy and ease concerns:

1. The Senior Pastor presents drafts not demands. Every idea from the Senior Pastor is not to be seen as the voice of God. Rather the Elders are fellow leaders seeking God’s will, His direction and wise decisions.

2. The Senior Pastor is open and honest with the Elders. Counseling matters are usually confidential but even these at times need to be shared, when permission is sought and granted from counselees to share with the Elders. The information the board needs to make a decision is crucial and must not be hidden.

3. The Senior Pastor needs to follow the Elder board’s advice. The Pastor does not always know what is best and needs to listen carefully to the board’s opinions and counsel. The Elder board respects the Pastor’s leadership and does everything to follow his lead while the Pastor values highly the board’s advice and does everything to respond to their care for him and the church. The Senior Pastor looks to the Elders to confirm his convictions as to God’s leading and direction.

4. The Senior Pastor does not control decisions or demand his way. This would obviously be in direct opposition to Jesus’ example of servant leadership. Decision making normally seeks to achieve consensus. Our By-laws make clear that a majority vote can be used when consensus is not reached. In such cases the Elders decide how much agreement is needed and whether to go forward with a non-consensus decision.

5. The lay Elders provide care, oversight and accountability to the Senior Pastor. Therefore, Associate Pastor(s) will not serve as Elders, as this would create a dual role situation, with the potential for conflicts.

Summary: Strong leadership is not only needed in the Body of Christ, it is given by God to be exercised and not feared. Our job is to keep all leaders healthy to function well, to protect them from temptation, to pray for them, and to follow their lead. We believe the best approach to leadership at Peninsula Bible Fellowship is through an Elder Board comprised of duly elected lay Elders, and led by the Senior Pastor.

Hello church family. I was just reading a daily e-devotional from Our Daily Bread. It talked about how challenging it can be for pastors. Especially in a culture that too often demands nothing less than perfection from our leaders. Fortunately, God doesn’t require perfection from us or our pastor. If He required perfection from His flock, we would all fall short! The devotional ended with these words…“So, let’s switch the focus and become high-performance church members who honor our pastors with words of encouragement and prayer.” Please find time to give our pastors encouragement every chance you can!
Dave Congdon