Well it’s true Mark Wilson is heading to Baptist Union of WA to be the boss man.
More later! …
Later…
OK (Thanks Rodney – See Comments) I had better expand…Mark has accepted the job with the Baptist Union as Director of Ministries for WA pending a vote at their big meeting in a month. He (and Karen) have given 3.5 months notice to Whitford, will then take some well deserved leave for about 3 months, then get stuck into it in Feb 2007 providing he gets the 75% majority vote next month.
They have been at Whitford for 16 years and no matter what you think of his leadership style or what has been created at Whitford, I would have to say, I do love these guys and feel deeply for them in this time of grieving as they wrap up what has been a pretty long haul as far as church ministries go. Well done guys!
If you are a praying person, prayer for this Church would be great in this time of uncertainty and searching for the right person to take over. Graeme is a mate of mine, chairman of the elders at Whities, he is a champ and did a stirling job of the announcement today in church, plenty of shock in the church as you could imagine, but he handled it with much grace!
No Guarantees 
Well hopefully anyway. His name is being put forward for member churches to vote.
I’m sure, if the vote is in his favour, that he’ll do a great job.
Wow, big news…
Kinda like Bill Hybels leaving Willow Creek kinda news…
Hopefully us Baptists arent thick enough to not vote for him.
From my dealings with Mark, he is a humble, passionate leader with enough credibility to really lead our denomination to the next level. Thanks to must go to Steve S for all the hard transitioning work he has put in.
my hope is that, by making this leadership move, the changes that the Baptist denomination in WA are seeking, revolve around liberating some of the the more conservative areas of their standard organisational practices – wich is something that Mark successfully did in his 13 years at Whitford as team leader/senior pastor.
But please don’t spend too much time trying to force the CEO pyramid management type of leadership that is now 20 years out of date in the business world from which it was copied by the church growth experts. It is a dead horse that needs to stopped being flogged in many of our faith comunities.
Does this mean Whitford won’t be like Disneyland any more?
Or who will be the new Mickey and Minnie?
Hey Lance say what ever you like so I am not knocking you when I say this but I would just like to mention that this Lance doesn’t have the last name jarvis.