Chairman of the Board
February 2014
As it was announced during the January 26 morning worship, I am serving as the 2014 Chairperson of your new Leadership Board. I am humbled by this role, but excited by the prospects of this new Board structure. I believe that this structure will allow our church greater flexibility to carry out ministry and respond more quickly to needs in the church, while also providing oversight and the ability to plan for the future–something we were not as well positioned to do previously. Not only has this model of governance worked well in other organizations with which I am familiar, but the early church demonstrated this model as well.
The first several chapters of Acts describe an energized and growing church in Jerusalem. However in Acts 6:1-7, we see that this growth had led to an uneven application of the church’s ministries. The apostles recognized the need to solve this issue, but they had a dilemma. If they were to try to manage the ministries themselves, they would need to sacrifice the time they spent praying, searching God's Word for the direction of the church, and preaching. While the apostles saw the value of the church's ministries, they felt that prayer, studying God’s Word and seeking His guidance was the best use of their time. The solution they developed was to appoint seven people to carry out the church's ministries so that they could be focused on the path God wanted them, and by extension the church, to take. As the church continued to expand through Paul's ministry, Paul gave the role of seeking God’s direction to a group of elders for each local church.
I am not so bold as to call the new Board an Elder Board, but our task is similar. We are stewards of the spiritual health of this church through the hiring and oversight of a Senior Pastor and working with the Senior Pastor to set the direction of Santa Clara First Baptist. The only way that is going to happen is for us to do the same thing the apostles did: devote ourselves to prayer and studying God's Word.
The Board is just starting this journey. As we establish goals for this year (in the coming days, in fact) and begin to discover God’s direction for SCFBC, we will continue to keep you informed. If you have any questions about the new Board, its members or its function, please feel free to contact me. Joel Robinson at joel@scfbc.org
The 2014 Board shown above: Jim Garvey, Steve McLenegan, MaryAnn Fairall, Jonathan Fung, Pastor Rich, Joel Robinson, Karen Dong.