Our Best Days are Ahead: An Announcement from our Trust Board & Eldership
We wanted to confirm the exciting news that was announced at Vision Sunday 2022.
Our Trust Board and Eldership, including Ps Paul and Maree, have made the unanimous decision that Ps Luke & Melissa de Jong will be the new Senior Pastors of LIFE. This significant decision was made after many years of prayerful consideration, along with the wisdom and guidance from a number of senior church leaders around the world with which LIFE has had long term relationships.
As a Board and Eldership, we started discussing the topic of transition about 5 years ago with the view of ensuring that this would happen from a place of strength. Our heart was to position our church for continued growth and be a leading example to other ministries about how to do transition well. We were in agreement some time ago that the right person for the role of Senior Pastor would be Ps Luke, supported by his wife Melissa. About 2 years ago, we made the decision that 2022 would be the year for the transition to happen and have been in preparation for this change since then.
Ps Paul put it well on Sunday when he said that we believe the timing of a transition of leadership should be based on when the new leader is ready to step up, not when the current leader is ready to step down. We believe wholeheartedly that Ps Luke and Melissa are the right people to take our church forward and continue to lead LIFE from strength to strength. We are honoured to be serving under their leadership and are excited about the next season with them as Senior Pastors.
At this time, we also wanted to honour Ps Paul and Maree de Jong, who are stepping into a new role as Founding Pastors. LIFE would not be here without their sacrifice and commitment to building God’s Kingdom. Countless lives have been impacted with the reality of Jesus in their time as Senior Pastors of LIFE and only eternity will reveal the impact of their obedience to God throughout their lives. We are truly grateful for the way that they have led our church with such grace and Godly wisdom. We are planning to celebrate and honour them at our upcoming Church Birthday celebration on Sunday 12 June, so save the date now. As Ps Paul shared on Sunday, they are still committed to building LIFE and, although they are handing over leadership as Senior Pastors, they will still be involved in a new capacity as Founding Pastors of LIFE.
We believe that God has been at the centre of this significant decision and we are committed to keeping Him at the centre of every decision we make as a Trust Board. As Ps Paul put it on Sunday, our best days as a church are still ahead of us and we are excited to step into this new season with Ps Luke and Melissa de Jong as our Senior Pastors.
Blessings,
Earl Gasparich,
on behalf of The Trust Board & Eldership of LIFE