Greetings to our Century family, from your Lead Pastor Search Committee. This announcement is to inform you that we have invited a pastor to visit our congregation, the weekend of April 4th-6th, with the intention of voting on him, as our Intentional Interim Lead Pastor (IIP). This vote would not take place till the following Sunday, April 13th. This was a process in which the Search Committee, working with Vital Church Ministries, identified the best candidate, then interviewed this candidate multiple times, vetted references, prayed, then took a recommendation to the Elders, who approved our recommendation. Pastor Carl Sutter is a recently retired pastor from Loveland, Colorado. He recently retired from a church he helped found, Foundations Church, in Loveland. Pastor Carl will be in Bismarck the entire weekend of April 4th, where he will get to know our staff, Pastors, Directors, Elders and of course our congregation. He will be preaching on Sunday morning, April 6th at all three services. At 3:30pm we will have a time of Q & A, prayer and getting to know Carl and his wife, Vicki. We ask that you put this on your calendar, and more importantly be lifting up Pastor Carl, and our church, in prayer.
If you would like to read Pastor Carl’s resume and personal statement of faith, you can either pick a printed copy up at the information desk on Sunday morning or view the pdf by clicking here.
If you’d like to hear a recent sermon from Pastor Carl click here to view one on Ephesians 6:10-24.
Vital Church Ministries Assessment Survey
In our last communication, we talked about an Assessment Survey that Vital Church Ministries will conduct. We are still on track with this process, so look for that survey in early May. All members and attendees of Century Baptist Church will be included. We will be communicating how you will receive the survey to ensure everyone has access to it.
Lastly below is an excerpt from our February communication:
A question that has been asked of many of us “why do we need an interim pastor? Based on the results of a survey conducted by Best Christian Workplaces (link to BCW’s website below), we know that Century Baptist Church is faced with a real need to improve what we call “organizational health”. This survey was taken by 13 individuals, including Pastors, Directors (Melanie Kost and Danelle Schlichenmayer) and CBC staff. Century has endured a lot of growth and change, in the past ten years, from Pastor Gordon passing away, Pastor Dave passing away, and the departures of Pastor Paul Nather, as well as Middle School Director, April Wahl. These events, and the growth of our congregation, have led us to a clear understanding that we need to improve communication and team trust within our leadership.
Lead Pastor Search committee members:
Pastor Jason DuPaul
Melanie Kost
Mike Pitkin
Charlie Young
Andrew Weixel
Andrew Delzer
Rachel Johnson
Barry Schumaier
Angie Gallagher
Vaughn Rhodes
Ryne Jungling