Senior Pastor Call Updates

11/16/17

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

After much prayer and deliberation, concerning the call issued to me on October 15, 2017, it is with great joy that I accept the call to be Pastor at Our Savior Lutheran Church. Heidi, my family, and I are excited about the opportunity to collaborate with you in ministry to further the kingdom of God in Minnesota. We look forward to joining you in the coming weeks, and we look forward to serving with, and alongside you in the years to come.

 

We value your prayers for our family as we prepare to move from Williamsburg to Minnesota. Please know that you are and will continue to be in our prayers as we prepare to come and join you. May God bless you in the richest way.

In Christ
Pastor Adam Hengst

11/2/17

Pastor Hengst came for a brief visit to Our Savior on November 2-3. Members had an opportunity to meet him on Thursday, November 2 during a Congregational Meet and Greet.

10/16/17

On Sunday, October 15, the congregation voted to call Pastor Adam Hengst as our next senior pastor. In accordance with our bylaws and constitution, the call to Pastor Hengst received unanimous support from the congregation. Dave Fine, chair of the Call Committee, reached out to Pastor Hengst that evening to communicate the results of the Call Meeting and to coordinate the delivery of the call documents.

David Gesko will be following up with Pastor Hengst to help answer any questions he may have about our church or the call documents and to discuss next steps in the process. We will provide timely updates to the congregation as this process moves forward and as we look forward to a potential visit from Pastor Hengst. In the mean time, please reach out to David Gesko with any questions that you may have. Please keep Pastor Hengst in your prayers as he and his family consider our call, and please continue to pray the Lord will use this process – whatever its outcome – to strengthen all of us in our faith, hope, and reliance on Him.

10/9/17

The results of  the Nomination Meeting  are that all that all four pastoral candidates will  appear on the ballet at the October 15 Call Meeting.

9/15/17

The call committee has completed interviews and requested background checks on all interviewees. As we conclude our discussions and formulate a recommendation list, we encourage the congregation to learn more about the top four candidates:

• Caleb Adams,
  St. Lorenz Lutheran, Frankenmuth, MI
  www.stlorenz.org
  Suggested sermon: August 13, https://stlorenz.wistia.com/medias/sbc029pj8a
• Joel Haak, Assoc Pastor
  Trinity Lutheran, Rochester, MN
  http://www.trinitylutheranchurch.org/
  Suggested sermon: June 24, http://www.trinitylutheranchurch.org/sermon-archives
• Adam Hengst, Assoc Pastor
  King of Glory Lutheran, Williamsburg, VA
  www.kogva.org
  Suggested sermon: August 13, https://www.facebook.com/KINGOFGLORYLUTHERAN/videos/1517459014943733/
• Greg Schlicker, Associate Pastor
  Good Shepherd Lutheran, Owatonna, MN
  www.goodshepherdowatonna.com
  Suggested sermon: July 9, http://goodshepherdowatonna.com/category/c30-resources/c16-podcast/page/2/

We hope you can attend the following meetings

• Information Session—Sunday, September 24 at 12:15pm
• Nominating Meeting—Sunday, October 8 at 12:15pm
• Call Meeting—Sunday, October 15 at 12:15pm

9/8/17

You are invited to an information session on Sunday, September 24 at 12:15pm to review the top candidates for Senior Pastor from our Call process. The Call Committee is finalizing the candidate list, which will be shared next week.

9/1/17

After much discussion the call committee identified thirteen candidates to interview:

• Pastors Caleb Adams, Adam Hengst, Douglas Minton, and Gregory Schlicker agreed to an interview.
• Pastors Mike Hanson and Adam Parvey have accepted another call.
• Pastors Brad Birtell, Marcus Bretibarth, Rob Harbin, Michael Heiden, Elden Kohn, Benjamin Perkins and James Uglum are not interested in interviewing.

Interviews were held this past week and the call committee is looking at potential dates for the Congregational Information Sessions. Please speak to any member of the committee if you have questions or concerns.

8/18/17

The Call Committee met on August 7 and 14 to review candidates and determine who we would like to interview. One candidate recently accepted another call and two candidates are not interested in a call at this time; we are waiting to hear back from the others.

8/11/17

Thank you to all that responded to the pastoral attributes survey. As you can see below the membership was well represented and four attributes remain in the top six: Faithful to Scriptures, Dynamic Preacher, People Skills, and Engaging Teacher.  The Call Committee was pleased to see that “Reaches Youth” and “Takes Initiative” now rate in the top six as these are two attributes that we have been looking for in the candidate pool.

The committee met on August 7 and will meet again on August 14 to review the remaining candidate information and decide on which candidates to interview.

8/4/17

Below is general information on the 23 candidates that the district provided for consideration:

The following eight were nominated by the congregation:

• Brad Birtell of Madison, NE
• Chris Bode of Hamlin, NY
• Marcus Breitbarth of Peoria, AZ
• Keith Grimm of Andover, MN
• Rob Harbin of Collerville, TN
• Dave Schroeder of Excelsior, MN
• John Warner of Hillsboro, KS
• Steven Weispfennig of Yankton, SD

Of the 31 candidates, four are not eligible for a call: Andrew Becker, Keith Grimm, Chris Bode, and John Warner.

At our next meeting on August 7, information on the congregation nominees will be distributed, information on Pastors Perkins, Schlicker and Schultz will be presented, and we will review potential interview candidates. Please feel free to approach any member of the Call Committee with questions or concerns, and continue to pray over this process.

7/28/17

Do the phrases below look familiar? They are the pastoral key attributes identified by the congregation two years ago, the top 5 being: Faithful to the Scriptures, People Skills, Engaging Teacher, Dynamic Preacher, Communicator. The call committee has been evaluating candidates based on these top five attributes and has also considered other attributes such as “Takes Initiative,” “Reaches Younger Generation,” “Vision Caster” and “Administrator.”

We expect to hear back from the district within the next week or two regarding the eligibility of the eight nominees received by the congregation. The Call Committee will meet on August 7 to review the eligible nominees and the remaining three candidates provided by the district.

New Congregational Survey

Please take 5 minutes to take a survey! This is an anonymous survey for the purpose of a “pulse check” on current desired qualities in a Senior Pastor for Our Savior. It is meant to be PERSONAL input from YOU! This information will be used in the paperwork the Congregation provides to the Senior Pastor we will call later this fall. Please fill out this survey by Sunday, August 6.

7/21/17

Information on 20 of the 23 candidates provided by President Nadasdy was presented at the July 17th call committee meeting; the remaining three candidates will be examined at the next call committee meeting. 

 We are blessed and thankful to have received eight nominations from the congregation.  The nominations have been forwarded to the district and information on nominees that are eligible for a call will be submitted to the call committee in two to three weeks.  The call committee will review this information at our next meeting, August 7 or 14 depending on when information on the nominees are received.

 7/12/17

Sunday, July 16 is the last day to submit candidates for consideration. A Nomination form will be found in Sunday’s Bulletin  and at the back or church. Thank you to those who have already submitted! The Call Committee will meet tomorrow, Monday, July 17 to review submitted candidates.

As the Call Committee continues to research the candidates, we’d like to share some general information about the 23 candidates that the district provided. Currently 14 of the candidates are in an Associate Pastor position, four are the sole Pastor of their church, and one is a Senior Pastor; the current position of the remaining four candidates is unknown.  Other information is displayed graphically.

7/5/17

We are blessed to have the following people on the Call Committee:
Dave Fine (chair), Alyson Fauske, Karla Frigard, Nancy Hagmann, Gregg Hove, Josh Kimber, Linda Machemehl, Roger Martin, Amy Wolberg

Our kickoff meeting was June 29. The District provided 23 candidates for consideration. We have begun to receive nominations from the congregation and would greatly appreciate the opportunity to explore additional candidates. Each committee member was assigned two or three candidates to research.

We are committed to communicate and engage with the congregation through this process while maintaining the privacy requirements set forth by the Synod. As we finalize the

6/30/17

Nominations for our Senior Pastor are open from any member of our congregation. If you’d like to make a nomination, please fill out this form: Nomination Form MNS and return that to the Church Office or to Dave Fine who is the Chair of the Call Committee. Nominations are open through July 16th.

4/19/17

On Tuesday, April 18th, we held an all-Congregation open forum meeting with Dean Nadasdy, President of the MN South District of the LCMS. The purpose of the meeting was to bring clarity to some issues that were raised at our March 26th Senior Pastor Call Meeting.  These issues primarily centered around the status of our current constitution as it relates to the call process, and the number of people on the senior pastor call election ballot.  This meeting lasted about ninety minutes and it gave everyone a chance to hear from President Nadasdy directly.  Lots of questions were addressed and the tone of the meeting was constructive and upbeat.

What did we learn?  First of all, we informed the congregation that Pastor Andrew Prin has taken another call to an LCMS church in St. Paul. He is therefore no longer a candidate for us to consider.  Secondly we informed the congregation that Steve Petrie has decided to step down as Call Committee chairman.  Steve’s work leading the CC over this past 20 months has been tireless, selfless and professional.  The Board is sincerely grateful to his service!

Regarding our constitution, President Nadasdy made it clear that we can indeed move forward in confidence with our call process even as the District reviews our constitution.  Since our call language is the same in both the constitution on file with the district and the one adopted by our congregation in 2012, we are not at risk of having a call that can be contested on constitutional grounds.  In fact we learned that many congregations currently operate without fully up-to-date constitutions.  That said, we have submitted our most recent (2012) congregation-approved constitution to the District for review and feedback.  We expect to hear back from them in May.

The action items from the meeting are:

1. Clarify Pastor Mark’s role for our church.  Pastor Mark made it clear at this meeting that he is open to several options in terms of his role with us, but we all agreed that he needs more clarity on whether what his role should be.  Church leadership (Board and Elders) will be working with Pastor Mark and President Nadasdy on this very soon.
2. Start the process of gathering new names for the Call.  President Nadasdy is going to start on this.
3. Consider the role of the current Call Committee from here.  It’s clear we need a new chair, but we also asked current CC members to hold tight while we work on points one and two above.

Your prayers over this process have not been in vain!  Please continue to pray for our next Senior Pastor to be revealed to us, and for the unity of our congregation!

3/30/17:

The leadership team at our church, to include our Pastors, our Elders and our Board, has been very engaged with each other and with President Dean Nadasdy (MN South District-LCMS) since Sunday’s congregational meeting. We have also heard a lot of feedback from many of our members. This feedback has been constructive, positive and critically, centered on unity. The Lord is working for good in this church and this has never been more evident than this week.

On Tuesday, April 18 at 7:00pm we will be hosting an all-congregational meeting with President Nadasdy. The entire congregation is encouraged to attend this meeting and hear what President Nadasdy has to say about our Call process, our Constitution, and any other subject you would like him to address. This meeting will be an open forum format.

Our conversations with President Nadasdy this week (by phone, by email, and in person) have already been fruitful and we are looking forward to sharing this information with you. In summary, we feel very good about where we are in the Call process, and that we will be able to move forward very soon.

We look forward to worshiping with all of you during these next few weeks. May this Holy time bring peace to us all!

3/27/17:

After lengthy debate at today’s meeting, the congregation moved to suspend the current call process and seek guidance from the MN South District on how to proceed from here. This vote was passed by an overwhelming majority of attendees.  The primary reason for this suspension is that many members of our congregation feel we cannot move forward in unity as it relates to the current call.

I spoke with Pastor Dean Nadasdy on Sunday evening and brought him up to speed on our meeting.  He has agreed to meet with our congregation in the near future to help us work through this situation.  Once that date is set, we will schedule an all-congregation meeting so that each of you can hear directly what Pastor Nadasdy has to say.  This meeting will likely take place on a week night.

If you have questions, please reach out to your Elder. In the meantime, please continue to pray for this process and for the unity of our congregation.

3/20/17:

The following is a summary of the Nomination Meeting held on Sunday March 19.

The Call Committee (“CC”), led by Steve Petrie, gave a comprehensive report on their work over the past several months.  The results of their work led them to nominate Pastor  Andrew Prin to the the election ballot.  The CC was prepared to also nominate Pastor Aaron Hutton at the meeting, but he informed the CC on March 16th that he had recently decided to accept a call to a church in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Therefore, Pastor Hutton took himself out of the running for our call.   As such, the Call Committee nominated only Pastor Andrew Prin.  Circuit Visitor, Pastor Michalk did an excellent job of fielding questions about Pastor Prin, as did Steve and the call committee.

During the floor nomination portion of the meeting meeting, Pastor Mark Neumann was put forth for nomination.  After debate by the congregation, the paper ballot vote was taken and the result was 47% in favor.  This did not meet the 2/3 majority required to be on the election ballot.  No other pastors were nominated from the floor.

So what will happen at next week’s Call Meeting?
Per paragraph 3A of the constitution:  “….definite election shall be performed by ballot, and the candidate receiving the majority of votes cast shall be considered elected by the congregation. The election of said candidate shall then be made unanimous.  If a unanimous vote is not possible, a new candidate may be elected from the proposed list of nominated candidates.  If additional candidates are nominated, these must first be announced at a public service.”

What this means is that, since Pastor Prin will be the sole name on the ballot, he will with certainty be “elected” by the congregation at the meeting on the 26th.  So that part is a foregone conclusion.  The next step taken at the meeting will be to make his election unanimous by those attending this meeting.

What does “make unanimous” mean?
The idea here is that the candidate who gets elected will be presented to the congregation and the congregation needs to agree that this is the candidate that should be called.  It is a formal recognition that this is the candidate whom the congregation as a whole can most get behind to call.  The question really being answered here is not “was this my first choice?” but more, “do I agree that this is the candidate supported by the the majority of the congregation and can I get behind the calling of this candidate?.”

If we make Pastor Prin’s election unanimous, he will be called to be our next Senior Pastor.  We went through this process with Pastor Birtell and it went smoothly.  We will take time at the beginning of next week’s meeting to explain this again, and explain what is expected of everyone at the meeting.

Everyone, please pray for this process and for all of those involved!   We hope to see you at next week’s meeting!

3/5/17:

The Call Committee has concluded its latest round of work on February 26th and presented their recommendations to the Board of Directors on February 28th.

Therefore, we are ready to proceed by holding a Nomination Meeting on Sunday, March 19 following the 10:45 service. At this meeting the Call Committee will be formally nominating two pastors whom they feel God has led us to consider for our next Senior Pastor. They will present information on these two pastors at this meeting so that the congregation can make an informed decision at the Election Meeting the following Sunday. At this Nominating Meeting, we will also open the floor to any further nominations. We will follow the same procedure as last time for any floor nominations (as defined at the June, 2016 congregational meeting). That is, any nominations from the floor will be considered an amendment of the call committee’s nominee list and would debated and passed with a 2/3 majority.

The Call Meeting will be on Sunday, March 26 following the 10:45 service. At this meeting the congregation will choose a candidate from those nominated at the Nominating Meeting to be called for our Senior Pastor position.

2/19/17:

* Over the last several weeks, the Call Committee has listened to multiple sermons and reviewed extensive information for the latest slate of Senior Pastor candidates.

* The committee invited three of the pastors to participate in a 30-minute phone conversation.  Two accepted, and one declined (not a good time for him to consider a call).

* The committee just met on Monday, February 13 to conduct these phone interviews and to share reactions.

* For purposes of consistency, the same questions from the prior round of interviews were used once again.

* The committee is actively praying and reflecting on its findings and plans to arrive at a recommendation by February 28, when the Board of Directors next meets.

1/20/17: The Call Committee met January 10 and will meet again on January 23 as they continue to evaluate the 13 names received from the Minnesota South District Office.

12/22/16: On Friday December 16, we received 13 new names from the MN South District for the Call Committee to review. The list consists of both congregational and District nominees. The Call Committee will be meeting in early 2017 to evaluate these 13 candidates, as well as reconsider prior candidates, such as Pastor Hutton – the Call Committee’s other previous nominee. After they have vetted the candidate list, they will decide which Pastor or Pastors to put forth as nominees at the next Nominating Meeting. The date for this meeting will be set once we have more clarity on the necessary duration of the Call Committee’s review. As always, we greatly appreciate your prayer and patience in the process!

11/6/16: Because it has been a year since we last received potential candidates from the MN South District, the Board of Directors and Elders felt it was prudent to go back to the MN South District to see if any other candidates have become available over the past year. We began this process by meeting with our Circuit Visitor, Pastor Mike Michalk, on November 2.

If you would like to suggest a new candidate, please contact the church office at 952-474-5181 or laurie.bromenshenkel@oslcs.org or a member of the Call Committee by November 27.

10/23/16: The Board of Directors, Elders, and Call Committee members met on Tuesday, October 18 to discuss the next steps in the process for our Senior Pastor Call. After constructive discussion, the Board approved the following:

1. Because it has been a year since we last received potential candidates from the MN South District, the Board and Elders felt it was prudent to cast the net again. We will therefore contact the District to see if there are new candidates that we should consider.
2. The current Call Committee will review these new candidates in the same way they did the first group of candidates.  This process could take until Christmas or potentially a bit longer to complete.
3. We will then schedule another whole congregation Nominating Meeting where we will follow the nominating process that was approved by congregation at the June meeting. To be clear, at this Nominating Meeting, we will accept the Call Committee’s recommended nominees for the Election Ballot, and we’ll open the floor to any new nominees from the congregation, with a 2/3 majority vote required for any floor nominee to be included on the Election Ballot.
4. We will hold the congregational Election Meeting (approximately two weeks after the Nomination Meeting), where together we will again elect a Senior Pastor to call.

We will schedule these two congregational meetings when we have a firm idea on the Call Committee’s progress. Please continue to pray over this process, and we thank you very much for your patience!

9/28/16: After Prayerfully consideration, Pastor Birtell declined the call to Our Savior.

9/16/16: Pastor Birtell spent time with Church and School staff and the leadership of Our Savior.

9/15/16: A Dessert Open House was held for the congregation to meet Pastor Birtell and his wife Christie.

8/14/16: After the Call Meeting, a call has been extended to Pastor Brad Birtell. Pray for his current Call to St. John Lutheran Church in Columbus, Nebraska and for the Call Our Savior extended to him. We pray for that God’s will be made clear to Pastor Birtell.

7/24/16: There was a Nomination Meeting on July 24 and two candidates that were nominated. The pastors that were nominated are Pastor Brad Birtell and Pastor Aaron Hutton. Continue to pray for this entire process and the man God has already chosen to be Our Savior’s Senior Pastor.

7/3/16: A Nomination Meeting was scheduled for Sunday, July 24 at 12:15pm. A Call Meeting will take place on Sunday, August 14 at 12:15pm. Both meetings will be held in the sanctuary. Continue to pray for this entire process and the man God has already chosen to be Our Savior’s Senior Pastor.

6/26/16: At the semi-annual congregational meeting, we heard about the steps for the upcoming Nominations and Call Meetings for calling a Senior Pastor.

6/10/16: A few weeks ago, we informed the Congregation that we would be holding a Congregational Meeting on June 5 to formally nominate candidates for our Senior Pastor position. After careful consideration and direct feedback from some members of the congregation, we decided it would be in the best interest of the Congregation to take more time to further educate ourselves about the next phase of the call process.

Our goal from the beginning of this process has always been make sure that we are following the process correctly. Thus far, we have taken advice from the Minnesota South District (MNS), and we have used our collective energy and wisdom as church members and church leaders to progress to the point we are at today. A lot has been accomplished, and importantly, we have allowed everyone time to pray for all of us every step of the way.

So where do we go from here? We have taken a careful look at our Constitution and Bylaws, particularly Paragraph 3A, which deals with the Calling of a Pastor. This section describes a two-step process that will require two separate Congregational meetings. Step one is formal nominations of candidates, and step two is the definite election of one of these candidates, whom we will then call. At this next regularly scheduled Congregational meeting on Sunday, June 26 at 12:15pm, we will be describing in great detail how the nomination and election meetings will work. We have not yet set the dates for the nomination and election meetings.

The Call Committee spent several weeks examining, discussing and praying over 34 candidates, which were submitted by the congregation and the MNS. They will present a formal report about their work, and the screening process to verify credentials and determine each candidate’s readiness to receive a divine call from Our Savior. After their formal report, the congregation will have the opportunity to nominate candidates from the floor. To be clear, all nominees will be put forth in the form of a motion from the floor (that means you, the voters).

Watch for the upcoming meeting dates.

6/1/16: Come to the regularly scheduled congregational meeting on Sunday, June 26 at 12:15 to hear the next steps in the call process.

5/8/16: Through considerable prayer, reflection, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Call Committee has arrived at two Senior Pastor candidates whom it would like to share with the congregation at this time. It is the Committee’s desire to provide the congregation with as much insight into its research and findings about these two men as possible.

There will be two identical information sessions in the Sanctuary for you to learn more about the candidates. The same information will be presented at both sessions followed by a time for questions and answers. We hope you can attend one of these sessions: on Sunday, May 22 at 12:15pm and Wednesday, may 25 at 6:30pm.

4/14/16 The field of 34 candidates has been narrowed down to seven and telephone interviews have just recently been conducted with these candidates. We had great 30 minute conversations with these potential shepherds of Our Savior and feel confident that our future is bright and we will be calling an outstanding new senior pastor. Follow-up meetings will take place soon involving discussions with District President Dean Nadasay, and then narrowing the number of candidates even further. The call committee hopes to make final candidate names and bios available to the congregation within the next month or so. Feel free to ask any call committee member questions about this process. After you have had time to “learn about” the final candidates, you, the congregation will vote to offer a call to our new shepherd. Please keep the call committee, and our pastoral candidates in your prayers.

3/22/16:

• The call committee has already met five times during the first three months of 2016.
• The committee has used these meetings to research, review and discuss the 34 Senior Pastor candidates who were presented to Our Savior by President Nadasdy.
• The vetting process has consisted of diligent review of written materials provided to us by the LCMS MN South District, independent online research, and acquiring and listening to sermon audio.
• Having now trimmed the list down to seven candidates, the committee is now ready to conduct 30-minute, first-round phone interviews with the remaining pastors. The committee will be contacting the pastors for purposes of scheduling shortly after Easter, with the intention of holding all seven interviews the week of April 11.
• Completion of these phone interviews will move us one step closer to recommending a final slate of candidates for the congregation’s consideration.
• We ask for your continued patience and prayer as we work through this process in a deliberate, yet efficient, manner.

1/31/16:

• With the holiday season now behind us and 2016 well underway, the Call Committee is working diligently to carefully vet each of the 34 Senior Pastor candidates who were presented to Our Savior by President Nadasdy.
• The committee met on January 13 and 27, and will reconvene again on February 9, to share and discuss candidate research performed by members of the committee.
• This will be an iterative process of evaluation and deliberation, resulting in the eventual winnowing of the candidate pool.
• Please continue to pray over this process in the weeks to come!

11/24/15:

• Exciting news!  President Nadasdy has completed our Call List, and the Call Committee has now received it.
• It is a robust list, to say the least, as it contains 36 names – a combination of both our congregational nominations and additional candidates identified by President Nadasdy.
• The Call Committee will next meet on Wednesday, December 9 to begin its review of the Call List.
• Given the large number of candidates and extensive materials for each (i.e., Pastor’s Information Form [PIF] and Self Evaluation Tool [SET]), the Committee will be looking to devise a viable and efficient plan of attack.
• Please continue to keep this process in your prayers!

10/25/15: On Monday, October 19 the Call Committee submitted, to President Nadasdy of the LCMS MN South District, the results of our congregational self-study questionnaire, including factual/demographic information about our church and surrounding community, perspectives on the current state of OSLCS, and the identification of key attributes for a new senior pastor.

Thank you to all of you who provided helpful input by completing all or part of that survey. The pastoral attributes survey that many of you completed yielded the top-5 priorities:

1. Faithful to the Scriptures
2. People Skills
3. Engaging Teacher
4. Dynamic Preacher
5. Communicator

The Call Committee also submitted a complete list of Senior Pastor nominations presented by our congregation. President Nadasdy will now assemble a Senior Pastor candidate list with an accompanying package of information. The list will consist of both our nominations and additional candidates identified by the District based on the key pastoral attributes that we identified.

The candidate identification process will take some time, so please continue to pray over the work of President Nadasdy and the MN South District in the weeks to come. We will notify the congregation as soon as we receive the candidate list.

9/20/15:  At the Call Process Q & A there were two hand outs, the Call Process Q & A and Senior Pastor Attributes. We need your input on the Pastoral Attributes and  nominations for Pastoral Candidates. Pastoral attributes and nominations are due by Sunday, October 4.

9/13/15: There will be a Call Process Q & A on Sunday, September 20 at 7:30pm in the sanctuary where there will be an opportunity to hear about the entire call process for a Senior Pastor. The Call Committee, Pastor Mark Neumann and the Circuit Visitor, Pastor Michalk, will be on hand to answer all your questions.

9/6/15: The congregation is welcome and encouraged to nominate candidates to serve as the Senior Pastor. Contact the church office with any names you wish to recommend. They will be considered along with names received from the District Office. The Call Committee will be evaluating all the candidates and along with the church staff, will be interviewing them. The congregation will then vote on the top candidates and a call will be placed to the individual the congregation has chosen.

Please be patient, as this is a thorough and deliberate process that could take 1-2 years. Most importantly pray for this entire process. Pray for God’s guiding hand to lead us to the Senior Pastor He has already chosen for Our Savior. The Call Committee members will be wearing bright yellow name tags on Sunday mornings. Please don’t hesitate to share your questions and comments.

8/16/15: The Call Committee held it’s first meeting on August 11. Marlene Doheny and several members from the prayer team opened the meeting by praying wonderful and thoughtful prayers that set an excellent tone for the first meeting. God is certainly at work in this call process! The purpose of this meeting was to get organized and begin the first steps that will eventually lead to the calling of a Senior Pastor. The committee appointed Steve Petrie as chairperson. His knowledge and experience as the former Board President along with his organizational and leadership skills will be valuable during this process. The Call Committee members are:

1. Steve Petrie (Chairperson)
2. Dana Heldt (Board of Directors)
3. Gregg Hove (Head Elder)
4. Paul Niebuhr (Elder)
5. Joel Renner (Member)
6. Karla Frigard (Member)
7. Dave Fine (Member)
8. Sarah Thomas (Member)

Our next meeting will be with a representative from the Minnesota South District to begin the search process. Anyone can nominate a candidate, so if you have a pastor you would like the committee to consider, please contact the church office.

8/9/15: The Board of Directors, with input from the Elders has established a Call Committee consisting of nine members of the congregation. Over the next several months, this committee will work with the Minnesota South District to find a permanent senior pastor for Our Savior. This process will require a lot of patience and prayer. Marlene Doheny has volunteered to lead a prayer team through this entire call process. If you would like to join Marlene on this team.

Members of the Board of Directors and the Elders have had several meetings with the goal of finding a Vacancy Pastor. The Vacancy Pastor is not a permanent replacement, but an experienced Pastor who will fill the Senior Pastor role from the time Pastor Zahrte moves in late August, to the time we have found our new Senior Pastor through the call process. After reviewing candidates provided to us by the District, we will be extending an offer for this role to Pastor Mark Neumann in the coming days. Pastor Neumann was the top recommendation from the District and he has also preached at Our Savior in the past as guest pastor. Please pray that he accepts our offer!

7/19/15: The Board of Directors, with input from the Elders have put together a list of names to serve on the Call Committee. The plan is for this Call Committee, along with the Minnesota South District President, to have its first meeting the first week of August.The Board also discussed the Vacancy Pastor position at length and will be working with the District President to fill this role in the next few weeks. The Vacancy Pastor is not a permanent replacement, but an experienced Pastor who will fill the Senior Pastor role from the time Pastor Zahrte moves in late August, to the time we have found our new Senior Pastor through the call process.

7/5/15: On June 30, the Board of Directors, the Elders, and other church staff joined Pastors Zahrte and Schroeder to meet with Dean Nadasdy, President of the Minnesota South District of the LCMS. The purpose of the meeting was to learn more about the steps we need to take to fill our Senior Pastor role once Pastor Zahrte leaves for his call to Ohio. In the coming weeks we will be working toward formulating a plan, and you will receive weekly updates as we progress. Please continue to pray for our church as we embark upon this new journey!