Dear Covenant Family:
The Pastor Search Committee has an update on our activities so far. We have had interest shown in our Pastor position so far from two individuals. One person was Jerry Gardner, a familiar name to our Nazarene friends. Jerry had been the Youth Minister at the Gainesville Nazarene Church for a number of years, and is currently serving a church in North Carolina. He spoke with Becky and Craig Alexander a few weeks ago and learned of our position. He commented that he might be interested in returning to Florida at some time. So we sent him our job description for him to consider. He and his wife prayed on it and decided the time was not right for them to go to a part-time position, so he declined to apply. However, he might be interested in us a few years from now.
The other interested person is Don Mauldin. Don informed us recently that he is being considered for a part-time Pastor position at a local church. If he accepted that position, he would not be available to us for Pastor supply any further. We then discussed with him our position and provided him our job description. Don responded to us with:
Thanks for your email. You and the church are very kind. I always enjoy being with you ll. If you want to consider me for your Pastor, I would be honored. I am not looking but I believe that God wants me to preach so I am asking Him where.
So Don will be preaching at Covenant for the next 3 weeks so we can all hear him a few more times. Please try and come to church to hear Don and to meet him, his wife Diane, and daughter Missy. After you hear him and meet him, please share your thoughts with the Search Committee (Ron Marks, Michelle Miller, Craig Alexander, Carol King, and Carol Purpura) on how you feel about him as our next Pastor. Please also direct any questions you have about our search process to the Search Committee, we want to make sure everyone is involved in choosing our next Pastor.
Also, continue to pray that God will lead our search and lead us to the person He has identified as our next Pastor! He has taken good care of Covenant Church for 34 years now and will continue to do so if we listen to Him and follow Him!
Ron – for the Search Committee