Commissioning of New Stephen Ministry Leaders
Stephen Ministers are lay people who provide one-to-one Christ-centered care for people who are hurting. This ministry is led at Resurrection by Stephen Leaders.
New Stephen Leaders, Bev Ledwon, Scott Deitch and Pastor Ryan, will be commissioned during the 8:15 and 10:45 a.m. worship services on Sunday, Feb. 24. These three join Susie Johnson, Tom Welch, Lynnette Browder and Helen Welter in the service of training and supervising our Stephen Ministers. Join us in celebrating these new leaders, as well as the current and past leaders, all of whom are dedicated to helping people who are experiencing difficult times in their lives.
History of Stephen Ministry at Resurrection
Resurrection became a Stephen Ministry Congregation in 2006 when Pastor Dave (retired), Pastor Mitch, Gloria Alpin and Joanne Daniel attended a week-long training to become Stephen Leaders. These four dedicated servants worked tirelessly to establish Stephen Ministry at RLC and trained the first class of Stephen Ministers soon after.
After Gloria moved, Joanne carried on the many duties of a leader. She and Pastor Dave recruited and trained another group of ministers and peer group facilitators, led peer supervision and continuing education, made members aware of the ministry and how to receive care and conducted the confidential job of matching ministers to Care Receivers. Joanne always had coffee and snacks for training and peer supervision sessions. We were sad when she also moved away.
The remaining Stephen Ministers continued to serve their Care Receivers. Pastor Dave was involved as much as his other responsibilities allowed. Due to the construction of our new facilities, he was not able to devote time to train new ministers, and we had no other leaders to do so. The number of Stephen Ministers became quite small and we realized that if we did not train new leaders, the ministry would end.
In 2016, RLC sent 6 people to leadership training. Lynnette Browder, Jana Forster, Susie Johnson, Helen Welter and Tom Welch attended, and Pastor Dave was trained for a second time. Since then, they have trained two classes of ministers and RLC currently has about 20 ministers serving the congregation.
After years of service, some of the leaders moved on to other pursuits and others are serving on a “part-time” basis. We are so blessed that Pastor Ryan, Bev and Scott are now trained to carry on the hard work of leading our Stephen Ministry at RLC. Stephen Ministry is a big commitment, and we are blessed to have leaders and ministers who are willing to dedicate both their time and their caring nature to such an important ministry. Please pray for these leaders, the ministers, and the Care Receivers they serve.