The pastoral search team has been very busy in the last few months. First, we have successfully reviewed a grand total of 105 applications which came in before the November 30th deadline. From this mountain of applications we were able to select the top 30 applicants. We then asked them to write an essay on some specific questions and to also send us a sermon in MP3 format. At this moment we are prayerfully looking at all this material. We are hoping that this will enable us to arrive at a consensus of the best 8 to 10 candidates. We will then arrange to conduct Skype interviews with these candidates and their partners. Hopefully this can be completed by the end of February. Finally the search team will select the best 2 – 4 candidates and invite them to The Hague to have face-to-face interviews with the elder board as well as to get a better feel for our spiritual community. Then the elder board will be in a place where they can make a final decision.
 

The pastoral search team is very encouraged by the prayerful patience that the church has demonstrated so far and asks for your continued prayer support throughout the entire process. We specifically ask that you pray that we will be able to hear God’s voice speaking to us so that the right choice might be revealed – even as we work through a lot of essays, sermons and other relevant information. We believe that God already knows who this person is going to be and so we ask that you also pray that God will prepare the heart of this person (and family) for what is to come.
 

The Search Team
Stephanie Dekker, Tim Pilkington, Ruben Roeleveld, Caroline Candelaria, Sondra Warner and Charlie Allmon.