Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCA)

Life and doctrine

Pastors charged to nurture minds and hearts of PCPC body

By Stephanie Byrd

Published November 1, 2008 in Witness

For the last two years or so, the leadership of PCPC has been devising ways to enhance our staff’s support of the communal life of our church body. Mark Davis became Pastor of Spiritual Life in 2008, but shortly after that the Pastoral Search Committee called him as Senior Pastor. Now, Bill Lamberth and Patrick Lafferty are taking on new roles as the latest step in a series of changes based on this long-term vision of building community at PCPC.

Patrick Lafferty, formerly Pastor to the 20+ Community, is assuming the position of Pastor of Spiritual Formation. In his new role, Patrick takes Paul’s mandate to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:16—“Watch your life and doctrine closely”—as his own.

In a large church with so many classes and programs, it is no small job to keep our biblical teaching consistent. Patrick will review curriculum, respond to church members’ questions about doctrine, collaborate with Bill in overseeing Sunday school teachers, supplement Mark’s preaching with devotional e-mails, and oversee Vespers. A Christian Education Committee will soon be formed to work with Patrick in his new endeavors.

Bill Lamberth, formerly Pastor to Families, has become Pastor to Families and Communities. He considers it a natural transition from what he’s already been doing—applying the principles so successful in the Young Families Ministry across a broader platform in the church. His experience in creating communities for families will help him find ways to welcome every kind of person who enters the church property, eventually creating a home for them at PCPC.

Collaborating and complementing

Bill’s and Patrick’s positions will collaborate in a parallel fashion. Bill will concentrate on facilitating fellowship or “body life”; Patrick will focus on teaching. “You can’t have one without the other,” says Patrick. Every healthy Sunday school community, for example, should be providing both teaching and fellowship.

“Community is a place where you know one another and are known,” Patrick says. “You are depended on and you depend on others. It’s a shared life with a theological framework guiding how you live and what you live for.”

Bill refers to Colossians 3 as a biblical description of community: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.”

To ensure that people find PCPC such a welcoming and accepting place, Bill will oversee new member classes, baptisms, children’s ministries, youth ministries, ministries to parents, and churchwide events like Markapalooza. He will think about things like building structure, meeting spaces, and technology, as well as methods of greeting people, helping them meet church members, helping people become involved in the life of the church, and fostering intimacy and accountability within the body.

Bill stresses that his new position still includes working with the families he’s served for the last three years. ″I came back to the church because I love families,” Bill says (he spent a few years working in commercial real estate between his last tenure on staff and his current one). In this new role, Bill will still be spending a significant portion of his time nurturing couples and families.

A Pastor to Children position has been approved by the Session, and a search committee has been formed. Brent Baker—known and adored by the children as “Leo the Lion”—is currently serving in this position on a part-time, temporary basis. Bill describes this position as the “voice and presence” of children’s ministry—someone who is down in the children’s area on Sundays, available to children and families. The three main parts of the ministry to families are being amply provided for, with elementary children’s ministry in the capable hands of Brent, preschool in Lauren Bell’s, nursery in Gale Emerson’s, youth ministry steered by Don Admire, and parents cared for by Bill himself.

Although Patrick continues to teach the 20+ class on Sunday mornings, he plans at some point to begin building a new Sunday school community open to people of all ages and descriptions. Aaron Cave, who has worked with the Tuesday evening Bible study this past year, is serving as Interim Ministry Leader for Single Adults. He intends to begin seminary as soon as possible (his wife, Bess Cave, Assistant to the Senior Minister, is expecting their first child in December or January). Aaron is “approachable, teachable, winsome, and kind,” says Patrick, who prizes Aaron’s enthusiasm for young adults, his devotion to their training in the faith, and his desire to extend Christ’s love to this city through acts of service.

As Bill and Patrick look forward to their new roles, they express great anticipation. Jeff Barber, for his part, sees these changes as the fulfillment of a dream. For the last two years the leadership of the church has intended to build strong pastoral roles that focused on the life of our church body. “How wonderful it is to see this finally happen,” he says.