Parkside's Associate Pastor

​I know it's been awhile since you've received my weekly TAB email.  The last few weeks have been busy ones, both in the Boyd house and here at church.  The chaos started three weeks ago when Rose and I made a quick trip to Utah in order to move Cassie out of her campus dorm room and into an apartment in downtown Salt Lake.  Cassie will not be coming home this summer, as she will be taking summer classes and establishing residency in order to reduce her tuition cost.  Pray for Rose and I as we enter this new season of being "short" one kid at home.

Once we got back, our church began a two week partnership with Beaverton High School, as we hosted their Advance Placement Testing in our sanctuary.  In all, around 350 different students spent 3 to 4 hours on our campus taking tests.  As the first week progressed, I heard comments from both parents and students as they were surprised that we would open up our church campus to the community, but grateful to be spending such a stressful time, in such a nice, comfortable, welcoming environment.  I also had the opportunity to invite various students and parents to visit us on a Sunday.  Be praying that God would use these conversations to point people to Himself.

From there, the busyness only increased, as our number #1 candidate for the Associate Pastor position, Roger Sharp and his wife Mary Jo, spent 5 days getting to know us as a church and the ministry opportunities that exist in our community.  During their time with us, they had several meetings with the Church Council, as well as individual meals with some of our council members and their spouses.  On Saturday, we hosted a bbq at our house, where members of our Grow Young Team were able to get to know them better.  During this evening, we also had a time of Q&A so the team could ask more in-depth questions.  The next day, we invited our church congregation to join us for a time of Q&A during our 10:30am service and many of you took advantage of this opportunity to further acquaint yourself with Roger and Mary Jo.  I want to thank those of you who attended the Sunday morning Q&A.  I appreciated your questions and have heard only positive comments from this meeting.

After taking a week to process all the information from their visit, both our personnel committee and church council met separately to debrief their time with the Sharps and to make a recommendation as to whether they felt God leading us to hire Roger as our Associate Pastor.

There have been some questions as to the hiring process and whether or not this type of hire requires a church vote by our congregation.  To ensure clarity with regards to the hiring of church staff, below are the hiring guidelines as written in  Article 5 of our church bylaws:

Paid staff positions shall be created, filled, vacated, or discontinued as needed in order to establish and execute the various and essential functions of the church.  The Lead Pastor, advised by the Personnel Committee and accountable to the Church Council, shall be responsible for hiring, managing and removing all staff.  

So, based on my time spent with Roger and Mary Jo, and at the recommendation of the personnel committee and church council,  I asked Roger to consider filling the role of Associate Pastor at Parkside Fellowship and he enthusiastically accepted the position.

While I am excited to have Roger join me on staff, having moved multiple times over the last 10 years, I also know how stressful this process can be.  Please pray for Roger and Mary Jo as they wrap-up their individual ministries in Houston, sell their home, say "goodbye" to family and friends and make the move to the Pacific Northwest.

I want to personally thank our personnel committee, Church Council and everyone who took the time to speak with me, as my desire, throughout this process, has been to make the best hire possible for the future of Parkside Fellowship.

Should you have additional questions about the process we went through to hire Roger or about what his duties might be, please don't hesitate to ask.  I am more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thanks again for your commitment to the future of Parkside Fellowship.  I firmly believe that our best days are yet to come!

See you Sunday

Pastor Doug