Leadership Transitions

What is leadership? Nicholas Murray Butler, former President of Columbia University, once said, “There are three kinds of people in the world…those who don’t know what’s happening, those who watch what is happening, and those who make things happen.” Leaders make things happen in the world. 

In the church, our leaders are responsible for making things happen by overseeing people and ministries. I am very excited to announce that Salem has new staff persons. And they are great! 

Along with our paid staff, Sharon Vavra (Administrative Assistant) and Bill Heald (Traditional Music), we now add Louis Busch (Building Superintendent). After many years of excellent years, Gary Novak has resigned to lessen the stress on his work schedule. We are grateful for Gary and all he has done for Salem. Louis has been serving as a Trustee on the Leadership Board and is already doing a great job of overseeing the building and property. 

We are also adding new, unpaid staff persons: Deb Black (Care Ministries) and Joe Dunnwald (Discipleship). We are formalizing what Deb Black already has been doing for the last couple of years. She has a passion for caring for people. She has gained a tremendous amount of experience and training, including a year of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) which is required for all ordained United Methodist pastors. 

Joe’s ministry began on the campus (University of Iowa, Coe College). From there he served for six years as an associate pastor of the Oakhill Jackson Community Church in Cedar Rapids. Salem is blessed to have Joe and Anna and their family as a part of Salem as Joe responds to the call to ordained ministry in The United Methodist Church. 

As the staff oversees people and ministries, one of the most important things we will do is meet together regularly for good communication and to make sure we are all headed in the same direction. Therefore, the staff will begin meeting weekly in September. As we continue we will want to add other persons to our staff too, especially in areas such as Outreach/Mission and Witness/Evangelism. The area of Witness develops and strengthens our evangelistic efforts, sharing the story of what God does through Jesus Christ. Regarding Outreach, we already have the Outreaching Missions committee led by Dorothy Higdon, leading Salem to local and larger community ministries of compassion, justice, and advocacy. 

These areas are transitioning from the oversight of our Leadership Board to our staff. While we have had persons on the Leadership Board assigned to nurture (worship, care, discipleship), outreach, and witness, we have realized that the Leadership Board has not worked much in these areas. Rather, the Leadership Board has focused on the administrative areas of Trustees, Finance, and Staff-Parish Relations Committee (SPRC). 

Therefore, since these areas are transitioning over to staff, the Leadership Board will transition to its primary focus: three groups of four people for Trustees, Finance, and SPRC. The Leadership Board will continue to function as the executive agency of the charge conference (the yearly meeting that officially speaks and acts for Salem), to which it is amenable. 

The Leadership Board will govern and the staff will lead people and ministries. The pastor is the leader responsible for the overall ministry and effectiveness of the congregation. The staff members, who are hired and work for the pastor, lead their particular areas of ministry. And the people of God (laity) are equipped by the staff members to do the work of ministry. The SPRC is responsible for accountability and review with the pastor and staff members. 

At Annual Conference this year, our keynote speaker, Michael Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburg (Ohio) UMC, presented four qualities needed in people selected as leaders. He said leaders need:

  1. to be engaged in the life and mission of the congregation; active and effective in front line ministry;
  2. to be inspired by the vision of the pastor and the mission of the local church (to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world);
  3. to be invested in the church; no one should be in leadership who doesn’t tithe;
  4. to have an informed, holistic (Salem/shalom), biblical understanding of the church and go away each year to be trained at another church.
I just shared these four qualities with the Leadership Board at our last meeting so we can begin discussing these. As members end their time on the Leadership Board or transition over to staff, we will be looking for new leaders for Salem. 

This is an exciting time. The rest of this year we will have these transitions with staff and the Leadership Board. Besides these, the biggest issue before Salem is the creation and implementation of a discipleship process. That’s why we exist: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Following Jesus is always an adventure!

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