New Pastor Info

The District Office is here to help you get connected, get resourced, and grow in your vocation.

We don't have a physical office - we all work remotely. But you can contact us in several ways:

• Email: mwd@efcamidwest.org
• Phone: 308-455-0878
• Mail: MWD, Box 360, Elkhorn, NE 68022
• Web: http://efcamidwest.org

Cindy (executive assistant) can help you with most matters. Colby (superintendent) is a pastor to pastors and church shepherds.

See the Ministries and Staff page for their background: https://www.efcamidwest.org/ministries-staff

Our monthly newsletter is called Interconnection. You can get on the distribution list back emailing Cindy at mwd@efcamidwest.org.

Free free to explore our website, but there are a few features that might be particularly helpful. Just click on the name of the page below.

1. Resources: Several local and national resources to help build the pastors' toolkit, help elders to shepherd well, and other tools.
2. Bibliography: One of the key features of the Resources page - a list of helpful books and websites that the pastors of the MWD have suggested.
3. Ministries and Staff: As a team, we delight in serving churches - find out the ways that we can come alongside your ministries.
4. Foundation: The MWD has a large endowment to be used to advance ministries in the district by grants, loans, and scholarships.
5. Credentialing: How to get started or make further progress on your ministry credential: license, ordination, or transfer.
6. About: The history and values of the MWD.

We place a high value on pastors taking care of themselves and their families. There is no way to include everything here that we need to self-care as pastors, but do consider at least the following:

1. Acts 20:28 is a great guide: Watch out for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son. The best way to care for the flock is to make sure the shepherd is healthy.
2. Your first ministry is to your family.
3. Add to your schedule intentional, protected times to care for each your soul, your body, your mind, and your relationships.
4. Take at least one day a week completely off. Train your congregation which day it is - many will respect it. Have your staff and leaders honor it and guard it for you, deferring everything possible away from those days.
5. Create a rhythm of rest: one day a week, one extra day a month, one week a year. These are not vacations or sabbaticals - these are days for soul care, for planning, for goal setting, for self-evaluation, and for visioning. The district superintendent can help you with things like "KRA's" and "PRD's" if you want.
6. Don't cheat your family (or yourself) from annual vacation time.
7. Make sure the church has a written sabbatical policy for all pastors, and then be diligent to take yours! (The district ministry team can help advocate for and develop a policy if needed.)
8. Check out the "Soul Care" page on our website for tips on maintaining yourself for the long haul and for "sabbatical" information.

From Tim Karges, Lead Pastor, Riverview EFC (Ashland, NE)

Year 1: Orientation: Don't make many changes, get to know the people, the rhythms, and the values of the church; take note of things you'd like to change

Year 2: Experimentation: Start working in some of the key changes you see are needed; it's experimenting, so be OK with failing and retooling

Year 3: Evaluation: Assess how things are going, including the experiments; think about the key relationships, your own performance, etc.

Year 4: Acceleration: Now dive deeply into the direction(s) you believe the church should go

From Micah Powell, Lead Pastor, Grace Community Church (Great Bend, KS)

• "A Gospel-Centered Approach to a New Church"
• "Getting to Know a City"