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Director of Youth Ministries position at Blacknall Presbyterian Church in Durham, NC

Related update April 13, 2008
It was announced today at Blacknall, that my wife, Amy Rowell, Amy_headshot_dec_2007dwill be the new Director of Children's Ministry (20 hours per week) starting May 5th.  Amy has a BA in Christian Education and Psychology from Taylor University and an M.Div. from Regent College.  She worked as a director of children's ministry at Granville Chapel in Vancouver, British Columbia from 1999-2002 and served as a professor of Christian Educational Ministries at Taylor University from 2005-2007.  Amy and I hope that Blacknall finds a great Director of Youth Ministries.  See below.
 

Original Post April 6, 2008

There is a full-time youth ministries position open at Blacknall Presbyterian Church, the evangelically-minded PCUSA congregation, where Amy and I are members.  They are only taking applications until April 30, 2008 so forward this to people who are interested right away.  I have placed the official job position announcement at the bottom of this blog post.

June 1, 2008 UPDATE: The deadline has been extended.  See new job description below. 

Why Blacknall would be a great place to serve.
I have listed four reasons below about why Blacknall is a great church.  Maybe I can help persuade some great people to apply.   Below my reasons I have posted the official announcement and details. 

  1. It is a theologically strong congregation. Blacknall is a very evangelical PCUSA congregation.  The PCUSA denomination is more liberal on the whole than the Presbyterian Church of America but at Blacknall, Scripture is taken very seriously.  Music and sermons are theologically rich.  Long-time Senior Pastor Allan Poole is a Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary graduate who regularly takes summer courses at my alma mater Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  Allan teaches a course called "The Pastor's Vocation" at Duke Divinity School with Dean Greg Jones and Dr. Susan Jones.  A couple of Duke Divinity School faculty, a number of theology and biblical studies doctoral students at Duke, and a few parachurch staff attend Blacknall.  The congregation also has
    high degree of involvement in ministries of social justice and
    missions.
  2. It is a growing congregation.  They have had great growth in the number of youth involved and so they have made the decision to increase their staff in youth ministry.  According to the 2006 PCUSA online statistics, Blacknall's worship attendance was 535 then.  It is probably about the same or larger now. 
  3. It is has a great location right by Duke.  Blacknall is situated one block from Duke
    University, next door to the cheapest (and some say the best) burritos in
    town at Cosmic Cantina, across the street from the trendy Whole Foods,
    and just off 9th Street (a great little strip of coffee shops and
    restaurants).
  4. It has a family atmosphere.  Though with an attendance over 500 Blacknall is getting large, it still has a family feel.  One example of this is that congregation members are given the opportunity to stand up and share prayer requests with the rest of the congregation before the Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession in the worship service.  The congregation has a mix of older and younger people.  Worship services have a mix of traditional liturgical elements such as the Lord's prayer and Nicene/Apostle's Creed but are otherwise quite informal.  The pastor wears a tie and blazer but unlike many other PCUSA congregations, not a robe.   The congregation dresses informally.  The church permits both infant baptisms and baby dedications – many PCUSA churches just have infant baptisms.  This demonstrates the number of people who attend Blacknall from free church backgrounds. 

The official posting from the April 6, 2008 Blacknall bulletin:
Director of Youth Ministries Job Announcement – Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian Church is seeking qualified candidates for a full-time Director of Youth Ministries position to provide successful leadership and vision for middle and high school students.  This individual will have primary programming and ministry responsibilities for all aspects of the high school ministry, work with an existing part-time middle school staff position, develop a comprehensive vision and sequence for Christian growth, and provide direction and leadership for this important relational ministry.  For more information, please contact Artie Kamiya, Search Committee Chair (919-818-6486). Closing Date: April 30.

The official posting from the June 15, 2008 Blacknall bulletin:
Director of Youth Ministries Job Announcement
– Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian Church is seeking qualified
candidates for a full-time Director of Youth Ministries position to
provide (1) a programmatic ministry to our high school students, (2) work with the existing part-time middle school staff position, and (3) provide overall direction to the middle and high school youth programs.  This individual will be responsible for supporting a committed cadre of approximately 20 adult volunteer youth leaders, developing a comprehensive vision and sequence for Christian growth for approximately 75 middle/high school youth, making curriculum decisions for Sunday morning and Sunday evening youth groups, and providing direct service for this important relational ministry.  For more complete information (job description and qualifications), please contact Artie Kamiya, Search Committee Chair
(919-818-6486); artie@greatactivities.net Applications will be accepted through July 15, 2008.

Update: Bulletin announcement May 3, 2009 Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian Church

New Director of Youth Ministries Announced – The Blacknall Session and Search Committee are pleased to announce that Brad Turnage will join the staff as Director of Youth Ministries effective June 15. Brad is currently Director of Youth Ministries at Grace Fellowship in Asheboro, NC, and comes to us with an extensive Young Life background. Brad was an intern with Young Life (Durham/Chapel Hill) for two years and was Young Life Area Director for Asheboro (Randolph County) for three years. Brad grew up in Bunn,
NC, and is a 2001 graduate of Elon University. He is married to Jamie, a first grade classroom teacher for Randolph County Schools. We rejoice in God's gift to us: this couple who love Christ and teenagers.

Categories
Personal Th.D. / Ph.D.

Updates: Family Photos, Courses, Books, Calendar, Facebook, LinkedIn, Favorite Podcasts

A few of you have emailed to ask about the delay in posts.  My family
and I are well!   I am loving my doctoral work here at Duke!   All is well.   

Two excuses about blogging:
(1) Blogging about politics and abortion will definitely make blogging feel like a burden!  (See my last post and comments).   The topics in this post are much lighter!
(2) I have so many things I want to blog about that are related to church leadership but I just haven't found the
time.  I think my coursework and family should get priority and the
blog comes sometime later as I know you all agree!

In the meantime, here are some updates.

Family_2Family Photos  

We had some new family photos of our family taken: Amy, Ryan (2 1/2) and Jacob (5 months) and me.  One is posted to the right.  The album is here

Courses

My courses this semester are:

  1. Scripture and Ethics with Richard Hays and Allen Verhey
  2. Church and Ministry in the New Testament with Richard Hays
  3. Theology of Mission with Laceye Warner
  4. Leadership with Allan Lind at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.  I am just sitting in on this one.  Duke's business school, Fuqua, is ranked #9 by US News & World Report, #9 by BusinessWeek,and #12 by Forbes

Books

I have also updated the books I am reading this semester in the right column.

Calendar

I am preaching at:

At both places my title is "Good News: Jesus is Enough" from Colossians 1:22-23 and Acts 11:17-18.

My wife Amy is speaking at the Granville Chapel Women's Retreat April 17-20 and then preaching at Granville Chapel April 27th.

I will also be at the "Jürgen Moltmann Conference" – the Society for Pentecostal Studies and the Wesleyan Theological Society Joint Meeting, hosted at Duke, March 13-15, 2008.  Calvin's James K. A. Smith will also be here. 

Facebook

Being a professor at Taylor University the last couple of years, I have been on Facebook for a while.  I recommend it as a way to connect with high school and college friends.  I don't use it for much else though you can spend lots of time on it! I recommend just putting up a profile and then waiting for friends to find you!  Facebook can produce a lot of emails unless you limit
it to just Friend requests.  You have to join Facebook to see my full profile.  See my Facebook profile at this link.  My profile is a good example of a pretty basic one.    

LinkedIn

I am also on LinkedIn which is a networking site.  My LinkedIn profile is at this link. 

Favorite Podcasts

My favorite podcasts are (in alphabetical order):

  • BusinessWeek – Cover Stories – interesting to hear an interview between the executive editor and writer of each week's cover story. 
  • BusinesWeek – The Welch Way – interesting to hear former CEO of GE and business management guru Jack Welch answer questions. 
  • Catalyst Podcast – great interviews with church leaders
  • CNN Reliable Sources – video podcast that you watch.  Great to hear media critics discuss how the media has covered the stories in the news each week. 
  • NBC Nightly News – Amy and I often watch this at night when it downloads between 9:30 pm and 10:00 pm Eastern time.  It is on TV at 6:30 pm but we usually miss it. 
  • Lots of preachers

These links will only work if you have iTunes installed (which is a free program).  I have explained podcasts before at this link.


Music

I am loving using Pandora for internet radio.  Free!

Firefox

If you are an Internet Explorer person, I would encourage you to try Mozilla Firefox which is very similar to Internet Explorer but I find it much faster in opening.  It is a free download.      

Home Page – iGoogle and Gmail

My home page tabs are iGoogle and Gmail.  I am enjoying them both. 

Photo

Andy_jan_2008bI also have a new photo on my blog biography page.

Categories
Personal

New baby boy – Jacob Graham Rowell

Dscn3427_2
Today a new baby boy joined our family. 

Jacob Graham Rowell

20 1/2 in

7 lbs 0 oz.

6:21 am today Sunday, September 16, 2007.

Mom and baby are well.

Big brother Ryan is happy.

 

Update at Monday 7pm:

We are home now.

Update on Tuesday 11:00 am:

We are feeding Jacob every 2-3 hours so that reduces normal sleep significantly.  But we are doing well.

Update on Thursday at 9:30 pm:

Here is a photo of Ryan and Jacob from this morning.  You can click on the photo to see it larger.

Img_0528