Dan and Susan Steere have been actively involved in the life of CPC for nearly 3 years. Susan is a member of CPC. Dan, an ordained PCA Teaching Elder, is a member of Presbytery.
Dr. Steere has preached for us on several different occasions. Along with Susan, he teaches the College and Young Adult Ministry class. And frequently, of late, he has assisted me, in Pastor Mullinax’s absence, with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Susan teaches at Chattanooga Christian School.
Dan is a missionary with ELI (Equipping Leaders International), working primarily in western Africa, particularly in the lands of Nigeria and Ghana. As most of you know, I accompanied him on one of his trips this past August.
The Session has voted to recommend to the congregation that we extend a call to Dr Steere to serve as an associate pastor of CPC. This position would be without pay. The Session is recommending that the support we provide through the missionary budget for Dr Steere’s ministry be raised by $3,000 a year. This raise in his support is not tied to the congregation calling him to be an associate pastor.
If you do extend to him such a call, and the Tennessee Valley Presbytery approves, it will provide Dan with additional credentials while serving overseas. It was of great significance for those whom I taught while in Nigeria and Ghana to know that I was the senior pastor of a church back in the States. Likewise, it would be valuable for Dan to be recognized as the associate pastor of our congregation.
Furthermore, it would be an honor for us as a congregation to be more closely identified with Dan’s ministry in Africa. It would be a great privilege to know that one of our own pastors was being used by the Lord to equip church leaders in western Africa to impact their people with the truths of God’s revealed Word.
This type of arrangement is not uncommon. Other teaching elders actively involved in a particular ministry of preaching and teaching, whose families are actively involved in particular congregations, have been called by those congregations to serve as associate pastor.
The Session could on its own initiative hire Dan as an assistant pastor. But the Session has chosen not to do this, because they want you, as a congregation, to “own” Dan as one of your pastors. Also, as an assistant pastor, Dan would not be a member of the Session. If you call him as an associate pastor (and his call is approved by Presbytery), Dan will be a member of the Session.
If you call Dan as an associate pastor (and the TVP approves), the Session asks that Pastor Mullinax’s title be changed to “Senior Associate Pastor.” This title is not meant to be a comment on Eric’s age, but would serve to distinguish his role from Dan’s.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call your elder, or any member of the staff. I’d be happy to talk with you.
Therefore, the Session calls for a special congregational meeting to be held Sunday morning, January 4, 2009, immediately following the service of worship: (1) to extend a call to Dr Daniel Steere to serve (for one dollar a year) as an associate pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, and (2) to change Rev Mullinax’s title to that of “Senior Associate Pastor.”
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With three weeks to go in December, CPC must receive just over $160,000 in gifts if it is to make budget for 2008. “Each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9.7).
Pastor Caines