DEACON - CANDIDATE INFORMATION PACKET - Ryan Fields

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

For each of the churches you have served, please provide your experience, your accomplishments, and the reason you left:  Associate Pastor at Creekside Community Church, Gainesville FL (2011-2016): Served the church as a pastor with full-orbed pastoral responsibilities, including sharing the pulpit with the lead pastor 50/50. Other responsibilities included planning and facilitating worship services, overseeing baptism and the Lord's Supper, teaching adult education classes, overseeing ministry teams, assisting lead pastor in leading elder meetings and staff meetings, hospital and home visitation, conducting weddings and funerals, providing individual, premarital, and marital counseling, leading a small group while discipling select small group leaders, overseeing prayer services, and many more. During this time I was licensed and ordained with the EFCA. I also spearheaded a faith and work emphasis at the church which included writing/executing grant proposals & planning/facilitating an EFCA regional conference around this theme. I left because over a summer sabbatical that the church generously provided for us it became clear that the Lord was calling me back to further theological studies for the sake of the church and that my wife and I believed that Gainesville was not the place where we were going to put down long term roots. It was an extremely hard decision, especially because the church was healthy and there were wonderful relationships that we had built there. But ultimately, we go where the Lord calls us.  Pastoral Apprentice at Evanston Bible Fellowship, Evanston IL (2009-2011): This apprenticeship gave me the opportunity to be in ministry while training for ministry at TEDS. I oversaw the college ministry of the church (near Northwestern University), had several preaching and teaching opportunities, shadowed the pastoral staff to learn the ins and outs of ministry life, and served the church in various ways that gave me exposure to the joys and challenges of being in ministry. I left because I graduated from Trinity and was called to serve at Creekside as an associate pastor.  Pastoral Intern and Director of College Ministry at Creekside Community Church, Gainesville FL (2006-2008): I was given the opportunity to explore ministry and discern whether I was gifted for and called to pastoral ministry by shadowing the pastoral staff, engaging in seminar style readings and projects (including preaching labs), and trying my hand at ministry by overseeing the church's college ministry (near the University of Florida). I left because the experience was very affirming, and I felt called to pursue pastoral preparation at TEDS. How do you view your involvement with various age groups within the church? A pastor is a shepherd for the entire flock of God, not just for a portion of it. While of course there will be various areas of responsibility that the pastors of a church will distribute based on gifting and job description, I believe it is very important that pastors feel a responsibility for the entire congregation and that every segment of the congregation feels known and cared for by its pastors (not just one particular pastor). In that way I think the senior pastor should interface with ministry to the various age groups of the church. This could mean dropping in on a children's Sunday school class, shooting hoops with the youth before or

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