Copastors from Overseas Installed at Church of the Servant in West Michigan

Two copastors, one from Northern Ireland and the other a former missionary in Ethiopia, were installed Sunday, Sept. 9, to lead Church of the Servant (COS) CRC in Grand Rapids, Mich., replacing  Rev. Jack Roeda, who retired in 2016 after 33 years as the congregation’s pastor.

The sanctuary, which features a translucent skylight dome supported by the slender branches of a structural steel “tree,” was packed for the service. Attending were COS members, visitors, and members of the church’s Basic English Service.

In his sermon, interim pastor Len Vander Zee said it was notable that the church has called two fairly nontraditional pastors. Neither Karen Campbell nor Andrew Mead is Christian Reformed, and both arrive at COS from having worked overseas.

“Today really does mark a new era in the life of this church,” said Vander Zee. “Either of them could be my child. We are seeing a generational shift. . . . As a congregation, we are here to receive them with solemn vows and commitments.”

Finding a Pastor

For COS, this was the end of a two-year process that began when Roeda retired. For the first six months the search committee took a hard look at the church, its membership, where it has been, and where it is going. Then the church set about finding someone — and that ended up being two persons — who can serve their needs.

The actual process took them in directions they hadn’t predicted, but they “are very blessed with the results,” said Jonathan Bradford, chair of the church’s council.

Not only for COS but for many congregations, the search for a new pastor is often a lengthy, sometimes frustrating and prayer-filled process that requires wisdom and patience, as well as introspection on the part of a church to determine what qualities they seek in a new pastor.

And the search process — as highlighted by the experience of COS — has been changing over the past several years as the needs of pastors and churches have changed.

“For both the potential pastor and church today there is a greater understanding (which is good) that not all pastors fit all churches,” said Jul Medenblik, president of Calvin Theological Seminary.

While churches and pastors today are able to pay more attention to the fit, there can be also downsides, said Cecil Van Niejenhuis, codirector of the CRC’s Pastor Church Relations office, which provides church search committees with a training tool called More Than a Search Committee as a way to help frame this process.

“With increasing pressure on the local church as numbers decrease in their congregations and members exercise consumer-like choices, the pressure has increased to find the right fit,” he said.

“Sometimes this gets to be a little much, so that churches are searching for heroic leaders who can turn the ship around, and pastors are imagining themselves to be such heroic leaders.”

In the midst of all this is the changing makeup of the CRC, which is becoming more diverse, as are leaders — and, as a result, what churches are looking for and who they are looking for is evolving, said David Koll, director of the CRC’s Candidacy office.

COS Reaches Outside the Norm

In his sermon, titled “Stewards of the Mysteries of God,” Vander Zee touched on the changes he has seen in what churches today require of their ministers, as compared to when he was ordained in 1970.

“It was easier to be a minister back then,” he said. “It wasn’t perfect, but there was a better understanding of what the ministry and the congregation was. . . . Now, we are in a time of consumerism, and hiring a pastor filters through that.”

Finding a pastor, though, should focus beyond a particular fit, Vander Zee explained. Instead, a pastor should be more like the apostle Paul, who told the congregation in Corinth that his message and preaching was not of himself. In 1 Corinthians: 4:1 Paul says, “This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed.”

These are the kinds of pastors COS has found — pastors who will serve God first, not simply the needs of the congregation. “Give our new pastors space and support them as servants of Christ, as stewards of the mystery of God — which is the revelation of God, the truth previously hidden and now unveiled in the Holy Spirit,” said Vander Zee.

After the sermon and a hymn of response, Vander Zee invited Campbell and Mead to come forward for the installation. He began with sketching their biographies:

After receiving his M.Div. degree in 2012 from Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Mich., Andrew Mead and his wife, Jana, decided to serve with the Reformed Church in America at Mekane Yesus Seminary in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — and during that time he joined the preaching team at the International Luther an Church in Addis Ababa.

In 2015 he came to serve as a temporary pastor at COS, and his congregation has been made up of people who come to the U.S. from all over the world and attend the COS Basic English Service, which is similar to the main service but made more accessible for  those whose first language is not English. 

Karen Campbell grew up in Northern Ireland and studied ethnomusicology among the Dinka people of the Sudan before attending seminary. While serving as pastor of Kilbride Presbyterian Church in Ballyclare, Northern Ireland, she spent a few months studying at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and preached a series of sermons on the book of Revelation in  the summer of 2017.

With Mead and Campbell standing in front of him, Vander Zee said, “Both of you are now called by God and the voice of this church to be copastors at Church of the Servant.”

During the ceremony church elders and deacons also came forward, circled around, and laid their hands on Mead and Campbell for the time of installation, during which Bradford, the council president, prayed, “Gracious God, pour out your Holy Spirit on your servants Andrew and Karen as pastors among your people and give them vision, strength, hospitality, and peace. Bless the common ministry we share together as pastors and people with the joy and power we share in the gospel.”

The moments of his installation were very powerful, said Mead later.

“As Karen and I stood while the elders and deacons laid hands on and prayed over us, I was deeply moved by the many faces in the congregation,” he said.

“The faces conveyed warm welcome and strong hope for the future ministry of COS. . . . In all the faces – young and old, American-born and newly American, lifelong disciple and reluctant churchgoer — I saw so clearly the face of Christ. It's a sight I won't forget.”

Campbell grew up amid the civil strife between Catholics and Protestants in her country and saw the wreckage of the fighting each day as she walked to school, said Bradford. Being so close to the fighting and then the move toward peace taught her the “reconciling power of God.”

In a letter Vander Zee read during the service, Campbell’s congregation in Ireland wrote: “We know from firsthand experience that COS will be greatly blessed by Karen’s gifts of heart and mind. The spiritual depth reflected in her preaching, teaching, leading of worship, and attentiveness in pastoral care will lead to many blessings.”

A year ago, COS sent a letter to Campbell asking her to consider applying to serve as a pastor. Both she and her husband, David, have worked in Kenya and always assumed they would return to work there again.

But they prayed about and considered the offer for nearly a month before responding with a yes.

As she considered the installation liturgy, Campbell said she was “so thankful for the rich liturgy. . . . and the songs from many cultures that were sung during the service.”

In addition, she said, “it was touching to have Pastor Jack Roeda come forward along with the elders and deacons to pray for Andrew and me . . . . and it was moving to hear the letter from my former church, Kilbride Presbyterian, being read during the service. As we learn to let go of our former ties, we are grateful for the warmth and love of being supported and held in our new role as we continue to build God’s kingdom here.”

In all, it was a service celebrating the ministry of COS, its new pastors and the process that brought them there, said Bradford.