Candidate 42
COVER LETTER
Please accept this letter as my application for the Pastor position at Church on the Hill. In my time as a pastor, I have served as an Associate Pastor at Holland Heights Christian Reformed Church (Holland, MI), a Teaching Pastor at Harderwyk Christian Reformed Church (Holland, MI), and the Lead Pastor at Hope Fellowship Christian Reformed Church (Denver, CO). In January 2023, I transferred my ordination to the Reformed Church in America, and I am currently serving as a church consultant who guides and coaches churches in transition. I am especially passionate about preaching, both to those who have been in church for their entire lives and to those who come through the doors for the first time or after many years away. Providing organizational leadership and administration also bring me great joy, and I have experience leading through a variety of new challenges, such as hiring new staff members, cultivating a culture of trust and accountability, revitalizing worship, restructuring council, addressing racism in the church, and leading listening groups surrounding the issue of human sexuality. For these reasons, I am prayerfully submitting my application as you consider who God will lead you to call as your next Pastor.
I will begin by saying a bit about my background. I was raised in the small town of Flushing, MI and grew up as a nominal Catholic. Despite the fact that my family did not attend mass regularly, those early experiences in church at Christmas, during Lent, and on Easter kindled my interest in the Christian faith and provided me with a sense of the hope and the riches of the Christian tradition. It was after my senior year of high school during a difficult time of my life that I first identified as Christian. During college, I was introduced to the Reformed faith through a campus ministry program at Grand Valley State University (Allendale, MI). After four years of Reformed preaching, teaching, and worldview, I realized I had found my home in the Reformed tradition and sought to root my passion in a theological education at Calvin Theological Seminary (Grand Rapids, MI; M.Div., 2008). In my fifteen years of pastoral work, I have always sought to help those who are walking through their own difficult times by offering the comfort of God’s grace and the resources of the Scriptures.
In these fifteen years of pastoral ministry, one of the most energizing parts of my job has been the opportunity to lead worship with people from all walks of life in mind. In my preaching, public prayers, and administration of the sacraments, I have always tried to speak to those who have been turned off by the church and to those who have never been to church. At the same time, I also try to preach to those who have been in church their entire lives, and I desire for long-time Christians to experience a deepening of their faith. In each of the churches I have served, we experienced baptisms (infants and adults alike), professions of faith, new people coming almost every week, and the reaffirmation of faith of long-time Christians. It gives me great joy that this included people of a variety of backgrounds, including people with Ph.D.’s and people who did not finish high school, CEOs and stay-at-home parents, lifelong Christians and people with deep religious trauma, people with tremendous privilege and those on the margins of society. I believe the reason for this is that the Christian message is for all, and when we preach and teach that the ground is level at the foot of the cross, this makes room for people of various faith backgrounds, those with no faith background, and those who have been in the church their entire lives.
In addition to preaching and leading worship services, providing organizational leadership and administration is one of my greatest joys. I believe God has gifted me with the ability to asses quickly and clearly what an organization needs to thrive, as well as the ability to cast a vision and lead people toward that preferred future. In my role as Lead Pastor at Hope Fellowship Christian Reformed Church (Denver, CO), I had the opportunity to lead through many new challenges. At the staff level, this included helping staff heal from a traumatic past season, as well as hiring several new staff members. In council, I led through a restructuring process to decrease the number of members on council and clarify our purpose and role as a council. I also encouraged our council to move away from viewing itself as a complaint department where mistrust between congregation and staff was allowed to run rampant; instead, I trained our council on how to avoid triangulation and instead to encourage direct communication. At the congregational level, I led through a culture change where those who prefer hymns and those who prefer contemporary songs no longer kept a ledger to make sure everything was fair and equal; instead, we saw ourselves as one united body, and this value of unity became more important than preference or taste. I also provided guidance for groups seeking to listen and learn surrounding issues of racial justice and human sexuality. Finally, in my time at Harderwyk Ministries, I led a rebranding project, which included creating a new mission, vision, and values, as well as new logos, websites, social media, and signage. I also led through a process of worship renewal at the Fusion service of Harderwyk, revitalizing the out-of-date contemporary worship service with new songs and refreshed/retuned hymns, adding accessible liturgical elements to deepen our worship, and finding ways to make the established parts of our service more intentional and meaningful (e.g., the Lord’s Supper, Baptism, etc.).
I am also eager to serve a church that cares for its community. I believe deeply that churches exist not only for the growth and care of those within their doors, but to be salt and light in their communities and in the world. This is personal for me, as I was once someone who did not belong to a church community and longed to find deeper meaning and to find belonging in a loving community. Perhaps because of this, I find it easy to build relationships with a wide variety of people, including people who are unaffiliated or disaffiliated with church. Indeed, people have often remarked that they do not like pastors or religious professionals, but they like me. During my time as a pastor, I have built relationships with many people who later began to attend our church, were baptized, and professed their faith. I also grew up poor, and my family benefited from the services our local churches provided. For this reason, I connect well with people who are struggling to have their basic human needs met, and in my time as a pastor, I have helped churches run food pantries, summer day camps and after school ministries, transitional housing, and community gardens. I also frequently include issues of social justice in my preaching, liturgies, and public prayers.
EXPERIENCE
Church Consultant; Rocky Mountain Region (2022–present)
Provided interim coaching for churches in transition
Guided churches through through self-studies to evaluate where they have been, where they are now, and where they hope to go in the future
Assisted churches with developing congregational profiles used to recruit pastoral candidates
Lead Pastor, Hope Fellowship Christian Reformed Church; Denver, CO (2019– 2022)
Planned preaching schedule and preached 40 Sundays per year, plus holiday services; administered the sacraments regularly
Planned weekly worship services in coordination with worship leader
Served as head of staff, including leading staff meetings, meeting regularly with each staff member to set goals and provide encouragement, and conducting annual reviews
Led the search for various staff positions (associate pastor, worship leader, administrator, children’s ministry coordinators, and youth pastor)
Served as chair of Council, which is responsible for the spiritual leadership of the church, and Administrative Council, which develops the budget and handles the business matters of the church
Defined the church’s mission, vision, and values in cooperation with Council; developed and modeled best practices for communication of the mission, vision, and values to the congregation; and facilitated implementation of the mission, vision, and values among staff and various ministry teams
Developed and implemented an online presence during COVID-19 pandemic
Founded Unity and Diversity Taskforce to begin congregational discussions around racism and justice
Formed and oversaw small groups for listening and learning around issues of sexuality and LGBTQIA+ identities
Led adult discipleship initiatives, including men’s Bible study, senior women’s Bible study, etc.
Provided pastoral care as needed
Served as a delegate to Classis Rocky Mountain (the regional meeting of Christian Reformed Churches located in the Rocky Mountain region)
Teaching Pastor, Harderwyk Ministries; Holland, MI (2012–2019)
Preached at and served as lead pastor for a liturgical-contemporary service (Fusion) and a traditional service (Celebration), 45 Sundays per year, plus holiday services
Planned weekly worship services in consultation with worship pastor (Fusion) and worship director (Celebration)
Developed and implemented a vision to move from a standard contemporary service to a liturgical-contemporary service (Fusion)
Performed year-long one-on-one discipleship with ten individuals
Implemented one-on-one discipleship system across Harderwyk
Led a committed group of individuals in spiritual formation and spiritual direction using a spiritual inventory tool called the Enneagram
Developed mission, vision, and values in consultation with congregational leadership team (Fusion)
Provided regular vision leadership in Council, congregational leadership teams, and on staff
Regularly provided pastoral care and performed weddings and funerals
Regularly taught adult education classes and youth group lessons
Developed and led quarterly new members classes
Developed and led quarterly Profession of Faith classes
Served as project manager for rebranding project (logo, website, social media, signage)
Organized a water drive for the city of Flint, MI (Lent 2016 and 2017)
Served on Council
Served as a delegate to Classis Holland (the regional meeting of Christian Reformed Churches located in Holland, MI)
Served on Classis Holland Mission Focus Team
Associate Pastor of Youth and Congregational Life, Holland Heights Christian Reformed Church; Holland, MI (2008–2012)
Served as co-preaching pastor for Sunday morning and evening services
Led junior high and senior high youth programs, including teaching and coordinating weekly youth group, teaching weekly Sunday school, planning and implementing youth retreats and mission trips, conducting seminars for parents on youth culture topics, teaching Profession of Faith classes, recruiting and training youth leaders, planning biannual fundraising events, and connecting students with adult mentors
Developed and oversaw adult small group ministry
Implemented a life groups ministry, recruited and trained leaders for these groups, and oversaw their spiritual health and well-being
Served on various committees, including the worship, outreach, youth, and mission committees
Regularly provided pastoral care and performed weddings and funerals
Served with chaplains at Hope College on spring break mission trips and men’s ministry events
Served on Classis Holland Mission Focus Team
Internships
Grand Valley Campus Ministry; Allendale, MI — Jan. 2005 to Apr. 2008
Fresno Christian Reformed Church; Fresno, CA — Jun. 2007 to Aug. 2007
Granite Springs Church; Lincoln, CA — Jun. 2006 to Aug. 2006
Bayshore Christian Ministries; East Palo Alto, CA — May 2003 to Aug. 2003
Camp Geneva; Holland, MI — June 2002 to Aug. 2002
EDUCATION
Calvin Theological Seminary; Grand Rapids, MI — Master’s of Divinity, May 2008
Grand Valley State University; Allendale, MI — Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Minor in Sociology, Dec. 2004