As we announced during the August 4 worship gatherings and then again in our e-newsletter, John Pavlovitz is getting a new job without leaving our church.
After eight highly impactful years as our Student Ministries Pastor, John will become our Pastor of Ministry Development effective September 1, 2013. In this new role, John will use his unique gifts of motivation and exhortation to help us create and maintain a culture of high impact volunteers at Good Shepherd.
We figured that if John could mobilize over 100 middle and high schoolers to give up their spring break trips to Myrtle Beach and instead remain in Charlotte to spend that week serving among the most vulnerable people in our area, imagine what he could do with adults!
We also knew that given his recent affinity for NineRound Fitness (see above) that we had to do something dramatic.
Truthfully, it’s a case of the church’s needs being well met by someone already connected to the church’s Body.
Which left us in search of a youth pastor.
And so I am glad to announce that Devin Tharp of Racine, Wisconsin will assume that role starting on October 1.
Devin separated himself from among a highly qualified pool of applicants with his leadership savvy, spiritual entrepreneurship, and communication gifts.
For the last eight years, Devin has himself been Youth & Family Pastor at Evangelical United Methodist Church in Racine, the largest UM congregation in the state of Wisconsin. He has grown an adult leadership team from one to thirty-two during that span and has seen student involvement in the ministry increase from 15 to over 200.
Devin is a graduate of both Asbury University and Asbury Seminary (well, yes, that helps) and is married to Tia. They are the parents of Leyton (7) and Brynley (4).
You can find Devin on Facebook here.
And on Twitter here.
And his blog here.