2011 All-Church Annual Meeting Report, Part 3 of 3


The following is the final report from the all-church Annual Meeting on December 18.

Vision & Succession Committee
Bruce Power, Vision & Succession Committee Chair

On “Vision”:
As announced earlier this year, the elders have come to full agreement that Bethlehem will remain one church on multiple campuses for the foreseeable future until the Lord shows us otherwise.



On “Succession”:
As also announced earlier, Pastor John intends to complete his role as Pastor for Preaching & Vision in June 2014.

Operating under the truth that Bethlehem is Christ’s church—not the pastors’, elders’, or even the congregation’s—the elders have agreed to move forward with succession implementation plan and have formed a search team* that will seek to identify a candidate from within Bethlehem:

Phase 1: Search Team will seek to discern whether God has already given us candidate and propose this name to the full Council of Elders. When elders have reached a consensus, they will propose the candidate to the congregation.

Phase 2: At this time, there will be a full vetting process of the candidate by the elders & congregation. (With goal of presenting the candidate to the congregation by May 2012.)

Phase 3: If unity between the elders & congregation on this candidate, the man will begin working alongside Pastor John immediately in preparation for the June 2014 transition.

Phase 4: If a clear unity is not reached, the search will be put off until the time of Pastor John’s departure from the pulpit (and an interim Pastor for Preaching would be put in place).

*The Vision & Succession Committee has now re-formed into a search committee, made up of the lead pastors and seven non-vocational elders—many of whom were on the initial Vision & Succession Committee.