ZPCBlog

At our recent congregational dinner and meeting, I had the chance to talk about a couple of ways in which we value people. We say we are a church that values community – which means we value the relationships between the people that are here and the people that are to come. We are called as the church not to be a building but a people who build each other up. For this reason, we are working hard in 2018 to improve in two key areas.

We value our people | staffing

As many of you know, Betsy Howden is retiring April 8 after more than 20 years on staff as our worship coordinator. We will thank and celebrate her as a church on April 8 and with a smaller private party of friends and family. Thank you Betsy – we love you! Betsy’s retirement means that Jon Graybeal will be moving from student ministry to worship to work alongside Don Nieman. Jon will do more of the upfront worship leading at the 10:30 worship service so we will have two great worship leaders instead of just one. Jon and Don will also handle Betsy’s duties. We think this move values our people as we enhance the Sunday morning worship experience. With Jon moving over, we are searching for a Director of Next Generation Ministries to take Jon’s place. This new hire will be a person who can do hands-on ministry for middle school and high school students and be a department leader over children and youth, from birth to college. Many churches around the country are using this model to bring a more cohesive and collaborative approach to help children, teens, and families in churches. Please pray as we have a great search team and are actively searching for the right person. Pray that God will prepare that person to join us, and that we will recognize and support this person to succeed at making disciples of kids and families.

We value our people | security

We have increased our building security in the building during the week especially for our preschool and day care, Noah’s Ark, with the addition of locked doors, entry through key fobs into the Noah’s Ark wing, and security cameras which provide accountability in classrooms. We are now working on Sunday morning security by creating a Shepherd Team, led by ZPCers Jim Martin and Mike Mitchell, who have expertise in security and law enforcement. The Shepherd Team will soon be trained and deployed on Sunday mornings in a few key places around the building to be “eyes and ears” to watch over the flock and to help lead when we have weather emergencies, medical emergencies, or other scenarios when hundreds of you are here on a Sunday. Keep praying for this group as Jerry and I work closely with them to take one step at a time (it will take a while to cover all the bases with security) to make our church more secure, and still grow in our gifts of being welcoming and hospitable to all who come to ZPC.

We’ll keep working on being a church who values community, helps you to build relationships, and takes care of our people who are here and even those who aren’t here yet. God bless, Scott Shelton

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