Announcement of Pastor Tim Nybroten
Dear Good Shepherd Family,
I have joyful news to share with you. After months of prayerful discernment, conversations, and discovery, we have extended a call to Pastor Tim Nybroen to serve as our Executive Pastor of Ministries at Good Shepherd Church.
I cannot wait for you to meet him.
Tim will provide oversight, coaching, encouragement, and care to the ministry areas that shape so much of our common life together: Family Life, Care, Adult Ministries, and Missions. To be clear, these ministries will continue to be led by the wonderful staff teams you already know and love. Tim's role is not to replace what they do so beautifully, but to come alongside them, to shepherd the shepherds, so to speak, providing the kind of pastoral leadership and care that helps each of them flourish in their callings.
Tim brings over twenty years of pastoral experience, much of it in large and multi-campus churches. When I first met him last November, I was immediately drawn to his humility and his gentle strength. He is a pastor who is deeply passionate about relationships, about pastoral care, and about helping people flourish in their faith. In January, Jeff and I had the gift of spending time with Tim and his wife Chandra at a Lutheran retreat in California, and I came so encouraged. They are a wonderful couple whose love for the Lord is clear and evident in everything they do. Tim is an ordained pastor in the ELCA, and he is enthusiastic about joining the LCMC family with us.
This is a new role at Good Shepherd, and it represents a meaningful step forward for the health of our staff and our church. As we have grown, and as I have watched and learned from other thriving LCMC churches, it has become clear that this kind of role is exactly what our season requires.
Historically, Good Shepherd has held a congregational vote for incoming pastors. After consultation with our Church Council and through prayerful study of staff models that we see throughout the LCMC - particularly from other growing LCMC churches with multiple pastors on staff — we are moving toward a process in which a Pastoral Search Team does the vetting of candidates and the Church Council does the voting on behalf of the congregation.
This is a shift, and I want to honor that. It is not a shift away from you; it is a shift toward a structure that allows us to steward growth wisely, call gifted pastors with the discernment such decisions deserve, and, in churches our size, lean on those entrusted with the governance work on the behalf of the congregation.
I share all of this with you because I believe you deserve to know not only who we are calling, but how we are growing into the church God is forming us to be. None of this is change for change's sake. All of it is rooted in our deep desire to be faithful. We want to be faithful to Christ, faithful to one another, and faithful to the calling God has placed on Good Shepherd in this season.
Please join me in praying for Tim and Chandra as they prepare for this transition. I cannot wait to introduce them to you. Tim's first Sunday will be Sunday, August 23rd, and we will have an opportunity for you to meet him at a date TBD in June for a Pastoral Meet and Greet.
The future is bright, friends. God is doing something here. I am grateful, as always, to be your pastor.
With joy,
Pastor Tara Beth
I have joyful news to share with you. After months of prayerful discernment, conversations, and discovery, we have extended a call to Pastor Tim Nybroen to serve as our Executive Pastor of Ministries at Good Shepherd Church.
I cannot wait for you to meet him.
Tim will provide oversight, coaching, encouragement, and care to the ministry areas that shape so much of our common life together: Family Life, Care, Adult Ministries, and Missions. To be clear, these ministries will continue to be led by the wonderful staff teams you already know and love. Tim's role is not to replace what they do so beautifully, but to come alongside them, to shepherd the shepherds, so to speak, providing the kind of pastoral leadership and care that helps each of them flourish in their callings.
Tim brings over twenty years of pastoral experience, much of it in large and multi-campus churches. When I first met him last November, I was immediately drawn to his humility and his gentle strength. He is a pastor who is deeply passionate about relationships, about pastoral care, and about helping people flourish in their faith. In January, Jeff and I had the gift of spending time with Tim and his wife Chandra at a Lutheran retreat in California, and I came so encouraged. They are a wonderful couple whose love for the Lord is clear and evident in everything they do. Tim is an ordained pastor in the ELCA, and he is enthusiastic about joining the LCMC family with us.
This is a new role at Good Shepherd, and it represents a meaningful step forward for the health of our staff and our church. As we have grown, and as I have watched and learned from other thriving LCMC churches, it has become clear that this kind of role is exactly what our season requires.
Historically, Good Shepherd has held a congregational vote for incoming pastors. After consultation with our Church Council and through prayerful study of staff models that we see throughout the LCMC - particularly from other growing LCMC churches with multiple pastors on staff — we are moving toward a process in which a Pastoral Search Team does the vetting of candidates and the Church Council does the voting on behalf of the congregation.
This is a shift, and I want to honor that. It is not a shift away from you; it is a shift toward a structure that allows us to steward growth wisely, call gifted pastors with the discernment such decisions deserve, and, in churches our size, lean on those entrusted with the governance work on the behalf of the congregation.
I share all of this with you because I believe you deserve to know not only who we are calling, but how we are growing into the church God is forming us to be. None of this is change for change's sake. All of it is rooted in our deep desire to be faithful. We want to be faithful to Christ, faithful to one another, and faithful to the calling God has placed on Good Shepherd in this season.
Please join me in praying for Tim and Chandra as they prepare for this transition. I cannot wait to introduce them to you. Tim's first Sunday will be Sunday, August 23rd, and we will have an opportunity for you to meet him at a date TBD in June for a Pastoral Meet and Greet.
The future is bright, friends. God is doing something here. I am grateful, as always, to be your pastor.
With joy,
Pastor Tara Beth