Embodying God-With-Us: City Church’s Shepherding Committee
God With Us and Us With Others
This Advent at City Church we are exploring the theme of Emmanuel—“God with us.” One of the most powerful ways that people experience the reality of “God with us” is through other people. In other words, in order to live out our identity as a God-with-us people, we must be a people who are with others.
While there are lots of ways this “with-ness” can manifest within the church, one way I want to highlight is our newly re-constituted Shepherding Committee. The Shepherding Committee at City Church is a group of 6-12 men and women commissioned by the Session to work alongside the Session in providing ongoing pastoral care to all the members of the congregation. Members of the Shepherding Committee will be assigned as needed to ad hoc shepherding teams focused on providing responsive and tender care in both acute and chronic situations within the church.
In no way is the Shepherding Committee the only avenue by which City Church seeks to embody the promise of God-with-us. Rather, the Committee functions as part of an overlapping web of care that includes City Groups and Elder Shepherding Groups and mentorship and friendship. Our hope for the Committee is to promote both the sharing and meeting of pastoral needs through the combined gifts of the whole church.
Why a Shepherding Committee?
We’ve re-formed the Shepherding Committee in order to provide a higher quality of care to the people of City Church—the kind of care that the Bible commands and that the people of City Church deserve. As a pastor I realize my limitations. And as a Session we realize our limitations. We need to have a visible group of trained and skilled men and women eager to assist us in providing care to those in need within our congregation.
Shepherding Committee members will carry out care that is both proactive and reactive. They will typically, but not always, work within the structure of City Church’s Elder Shepherding Groups. It’s important to say that they won’t be the only people committed to being with others in our church, but they are ready and willing to enter into situations of care.
A further specialized role for Shepherding Committee members is to serve on Abuse Response Teams or Crisis Response Teams, as outlined in the City Church Response to Abuse Policy. While we hope that we never face circumstances that require these teams, we want to be prepared. It's also essential for us to have members of the Shepherding Committee who are not part of our staff and our leadership, in case allegations of abuse are brought against staff or leadership. We hope that the structure of our Shepherding Committee will help victims feel like they will be heard safely and that their experiences will be responded to with all due impartiality.
Our God is with us so in our deepest pain and confusion, so we must be with others in their pain, too.
The Makeup of the Shepherding Committee
The Shepherding Committee is composed of: staff members, Pastor Erik, Pastor Harrison, and Director of Women’s Ministry, Meg Haden; Elder, Stefan Kling; and members, David & Kelly Blanchard, Dan Carson, Christine Dart, Julie Davis, Carl Meyer, Brianne Pryor, Michael Rawls, and Grant & Tracye Woodfin. All of these members were appointed to the Committee by the Session to serve 2-year terms. The Shepherding Committee will hold standing meetings on the second Tuesday of January, April, July, and October. And, of course, it will meet additionally whenever necessary.
Please feel free to contact a Shepherding Committee member at any point with a need or concern. You also may reach out to the Shepherding Committee at shepherding@citychurchrva.com. Your concerns may be shared with other members of the Shepherding Committee, including the Elders and Pastors, but will be held with all proper discretion. If you have further questions about the Shepherding Committee, please reach out to Erik.