Message from the Senior Pastor Call Team

Our committee remains hard at work discerning who will be the next Senior Pastor at Good Shepherd. We have vetted several candidates, conducted multiple interviews, and reviewed every person submitted by the congregation. Unfortunately, the Call Process has not yet yielded the person we feel called by God to be the next Senior Pastor of Good Shepherd.

The process has surfaced a strong recommendation to consider adding a pastoral search firm to aid us in widening our scope and casting a larger net. Council has approved adding this resource to aid the team in vetting even more candidates for this important position. We remain committed to the process, and ask for your prayers in leading the right Senior Pastor to Good Shepherd.

Senior Pastor Call Team

Council, at the recommendation of the Senior Pastor Call Team, has approved retaining a search firm for our Senior Pastor opening. This is a significant expansion of our process in terms of both scope and resources.

Working with a search firm provides several key benefits…

• The search is now expanded by recruitment professionals to go beyond the ELCA and research further into reciprocal denominations. The Senior Pastor Call Team has always included reciprocal denominations in their search, but the team does not have the network to completely reach this broader base of pastors.
• A search firm can contact individuals who may not be actively looking for a new call but would prayerfully consider it if asked.
• We will have a dedicated recruiting professional working on this search supported by a firm that has extensive experience helping pastors and churches put “the right people in the right seats”.

Additionally, Good Shepherd is a unique congregation in the scope of the broader Christian church. Because of that, help from recruitment professionals will positively impact our Call Process! Some of the unique characteristics of our congregation…

• The size of Good Shepherd’s Staff and Congregation not only in the ELCA but in the broader Christian church
• We provide two worship styles, both Contemporary and Traditional
• We are a Christian church with roots in the Lutheran tradition
• Our situation is unique to previous Good Shepherd Call Processes since we do not have any called Senior or Associate Pastors on Staff

We are blessed to have Pastor Paul serving as our Interim Pastor and Pastor Glen preaching on our Teaching Team. Additionally, we have an amazing Staff with significant theological education and leadership. We want to be doing all we can to support this process and cast the net wide while being in constant prayer and relying on God’s Holy Spirit for guidance.

We ask for continued prayers for this process and a successful calling of a new Senior Pastor to Good Shepherd! We invite you to attend the next Coffee with Council on Sunday, November 20 where the Senior Pastor Call Team and Council will provide more details.

Please utilize the email, called2call@goodshepherd-naperville.org, to forward questions or Senior Pastor recommendations. In your email, please provide the candidate’s name, their current church, and other relevant information.

Associate Pastor Call Team

The Associate Pastor Call Team continues to work on the Ministry Site Profile for the Associate Pastor. Please pray for this team’s discernment!

Please utilize the email, apcallteam@goodshepherd-naperville.com, to forward questions or Associate Pastor recommendations. In your email, please provide the candidate’s name, their current church, and other relevant information.

More Information

We post Updates regarding our Pastoral Call Process every two weeks. For easy navigation, we have condensed all information into one webpage for our community to access.

Visit Pastoral Call Process to learn more about the call for our next Senior and Associate Pastor, view our Ministry Site Profile, and read previous Updates.

Visit Meet Our Call Teams to learn more about the leaders serving on our Call Teams.