A word from Tim Mallett

Hey West K.  This week's Warehouse comes from Tim Mallett, who is serving as one of the Elders at West K. With so much going on and with this past Sunday's announcement that we are starting the process of looking for an additional full-time staff to serve with us at West K, I thought it would be good have one of our leaders share on this.  So, without further delay... I give you Elder, father, husband, administrator, pharmacist, a young guy with white hair, and a man who loves Jesus... Tim Mallett (crowd cheers!)...

I am grateful for the opportunity to write this week’s West K Warehouse and would like to share with you some of the thought process behind our recent decision to begin requesting resumes and audio/visual performances in the search for a worship minister.  

In August, prior to the congregational meeting, the leadership (elders, deacons, wise counsel and staff) met to set priorities for the next year.  It was unanimous that bringing on a full time minister was our first priority and this was completed when Jason was affirmed in October.  There was also consensus by the group that a worship minister should be our next priority.  We have been fortunate to have wonderful, talented and dedicated volunteer worship leaders but it was becoming clear to us that they were burning out and that change was necessary to keep them from losing their joy of worship.

The value of hiring a worship leader has not been lost on anyone over the past few years, but ability of West K to bring on and sustain a new ministerial position has generated concern.  We have been so blessed by the faithful giving of our members and, in fact, our overall giving is not too far from where it was before the events of last October.  This continued giving, along with the advent of our relationship with the Solomon Foundation, has now given us the confidence to move forward. 

The desire of the Solomon Foundation (SF) is to remove hindrances to the furthering of God’s kingdom and the issue many churches face is financial.  We are in the underwriting process with SF and will begin environmental testing and appraisals in the next few weeks.  They are excited to work with West K and see the huge potential harvest within just a few miles of our building.  By reducing our monthly payments and maintaining/growing our giving we can now afford to bring on an additional minister to help us move forward.

We do not want to be like the servant who buried his talent in the ground and did not use what was given him to further his master’s kingdom.  Our finance team has been involved in this decision and is pleased that we have been able to build a significant reserve in just the past 6 months.  It would be fantastic to have close to a year’s worth of salary and expenses in the bank prior to bringing on the additional minister and this is a very real possibility.

That being said please understand that we are not in a hurry to hire “someone”.  It is essential that we hire the right person, the one that God has consecrated just for West K, to partner with us in growing Christ’s church.  We will be presenting the job description to bible colleges well known to West K as well as utilizing some other recruiting avenues.  We look forward to keeping you informed as the search progresses and would love to answer any questions you may have regarding the process.   We mean to be transparent and your input is very important to us.  Please pray for the leadership, our church body and the individual that God has chosen to work with us in the area of worship.