Search Process
August 2015
Our elders, Steve Brown, Charles Carter, Troy Gravil, Troy Kolb, Dr. JR Jones, John Majors, Kenny Meurer led the church into a period of praying for the next steps in forming a Pastor Search Team and God’s guidance through the process. Based on our By-Laws, they would become the basis of a search team consisting of all elders and selected others to represent the congregation. They selected Eddie Lee Brooks, Shannon Hampshire, and Phil Peercy.
During the interim period, the elders:
1. Challenged us to remain humble and unified.
2. Challenged us to lean in and not out during this time of transition relying on God’s guidance.
3. Asked Michael Hearn and Matt Morris to lead our church by preaching for our Sunday Morning Services. Thank you Matt and Michael for your investment into our lives during this time.
September 2015
The Search Team selected Vanderbloemen Search Group to assist them in the process of meeting with potential candidates. In addition, they invited the entire congregation to give input through a survey and identified to the qualities that they would be searching for. In this process, a focus on Discipleship became forefront in the qualities they began searching for.
October 2015
The Job Description built on the identified qualities was released by Vanderbloemen and hundreds applied for the position. Vanderbloemen assisted the Search Team by narrowing down candidates based on the pre-set criteria.
November-December 2015
Vanderbloemen presented the slate of candidates to the Search Team. The search team began to interview each potential Lead Pastor and slowly narrowed down the candidates.
January 2016
On the first Sunday of January, the Search Team invited Pastor Brian Stone and his family to visit Valley View, do face-to-face interviews, meet the staff, and get to know Louisville. After this meeting, the search team felt lead by God to call Brian Stone as our next Lead Pastor. On January 10, the Elders shared the Search Teams decision with the congregation and announced Pastor Brian’s visit in view of a call to take place on January 24th with a vote taking place on that morning.