Big Changes Coming for Children, Youth and Family Ministries

By Pat Leicher, Church President
Steve Schibsted, Senior Pastor

The Mission Study Team invested an incredible amount of time collecting data and opinions from the congregation. Their report, which was submitted about a year ago, prioritized ministry to children, youth and families as the number one goal for Piedmont Community Church. The Board of Trustees then created a task force to evaluate and recommend ways to revitalize these ministries. The task force submitted its report to the Trustees in December 2022. 

They rebranded this focus for the church as NextGen Ministry. A copy of the task force report can be found here.

In December, the Board of Trustees approved and, at the stewardship meeting on January 15, Senior Pastor Steve Schibsted announced the key recommendation of the NextGen task force: the hiring of a NextGen Director. The Director will report to Steve and have overall responsibility for the continuity of vision and model of ministry for our children from birth through high school graduation. The task force report says “Intentionally determining what our church wants to specifically see developed in our children spiritually, mentally and emotionally during the entirety of their experience at PCC will produce stronger, healthier people and disciples.” The Director will also implement a desired emphasis on partnering with parents and transforming the Christian Education (CE) building into “an attractive, inviting cool, fun place for kids to hang out.”

Youth Pastor Scott Kail will continue to use his incredible gifts and his passion for connecting with – and ministering to – middle school and high school youth. The new person will have responsibility for children’s programming for the foreseeable future, until the children’s program grows enough to justify an additional hire. Leslie Quantz’s role as Director of Children’s Ministries will transition to NextGen Coordinator with a special focus on our youngest children. Scott and Leslie will report to the NextGen Director.

This decision to make a new hire is a bold and visionary but necessary step. The children/youth/family ministries simply will not grow without this kind of investment, and we need someone to lead this initiative.

The next important and critical question is, “How do we pay for it?”

In addition to this NextGen Director position, we plan to add a Manager of Program Implementation and Coordination. This position has been outlined previously. It is an upgraded combination of several positions the church has had over the years but does not have now, including administrative assistant, publications coordinator and volunteer and fellowship coordinator. The Board of Trustees has done extensive modeling about costs for these two positions and focused on one that is conservative, but not overly so. We used our best estimate for salary and benefits. Over the first three years, we will need to draw about $152,000 from our unrestricted reserves of $690,000 to subsidize this growth.

To be responsible stewards of church assets, we will need to keep a constant eye on how we are doing according to this plan and correct course as necessary.  We will need to see the anticipated growth to keep moving forward.  

So, is this bold? Yes! But, it is also necessary, financially prudent and very exciting. We will keep you posted as we move forward.