Who is my Elder and what should I expect?

At Good Shepherd, the role of Elder for the church is to watch over the spiritual health and personal life change of the members. We measure the spiritual health of the congregation through the member’s regular attendance at worship and partaking in communion. We care about you and your physical well-being and want to know how you are doing. Our other role is overseeing the worship and music of the Church as this is directly tied to Spiritual health.

We have designated your elder based on your last name as follows:

Members          Elder

A - F                 Dean Daniels

G - K                 Leroy Raap

L - Q                 Terry Frey

R - T                 Vincent Woolley

U - Z                 Glen Leavens

Each elder was assigned part of the alphabetical membership list of our congregation and asked to call every family on his list. We are concerned about the spiritual health of the congregation.  The church constitution asks us to follow-up with members in irregular attendance. Please sign in each time you attend as that is how we track attendance.

Your role:

1. Welcome your elder.  We will look to contact you as well.
2. Reach out to us when you are having any issues, Spiritual or physical that the Church could assist you with. Allow us to follow-up with you. If needed, we will also get Pastor Bill involved. 
3. Help us identify those that are hurting and in need of care. We will look to provide assistance and identify resources to assist.

We all want to share how we enjoyed the stimulation of Christian fellowship. If coming together in worship was not important, we could broadcast our services or just send our sermons via email. We care about the members of the congregation.

My belief is that our congregation should be a close-knit fellowship, a family in which we share tears and laughter and are genuinely interested in each other; bearing, caring, and sharing burdens. Shepherd sheep before they lose their way. It’s easy to maintain fellowship with friends, relatives, and cronies. But it’s equally easy to ignore the odd person, the reticent one, the “stranger” whom we don’t know. Good Shepherd has always been a friendly congregation, and we want to ensure that all feel welcome and none feel unwanted and fall away because we’ve excluded them from the circle of our friendship and activity. We ask the elders to include everyone in church activities because Christ invites everyone to His banquet table.

-Glen Leavens, Head Elder