Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am pleased to announce that your elders have approved a proposal by our staff to realign the duties of Ryan Smith and Steven Hovater in order to provide for additional emphasis on important ministries of our church family.  This realignment will also provide these ministers the environment both for growth in their ministerial experience and the opportunity to serve in areas where they are gifted and passionate.

Ryan Smith
Ryan will begin a transition this fall from youth ministry to be completed by year end.  He will continue to partner with Steven and Sarah in youth ministry during that period, and will be in a full-time role with new duties beginning in January of 2009.

Ryan’s new focus will be in the area of congregational involvement, working closely with Jeff Spry. 

Ryan’s new ministry responsibilities will be primarily focused on the following areas:

• He will be the coordinating minister for all matters related to the LIFE Group Ministry at PV, working with LIFE Group deacons in leadership recruiting, training, group discussion resources, and ministry growth.
• He will be responsible for new member assimilation, including meeting with new members, providing a welcome and orientation, and facilitating and encouraging their involvement in our ministries, LIFE Groups and classes.
• He will focus on ministry to our young couples, those who are the most newly married of our church family.  This group is currently comprised of over 60 couples, and is a fast growing segment of our church.  We recognize this life stage to be a critical entry point for new members to PV, as newly married couples – many just moving to Little Rock – seek a church home. 
• He will work with the deacons in the Men’s Ministry.
In addition, Ryan will assist in other areas of involvement with the PV family as well as fill other general ministry duties.

Steven Hovater
Steven will continue his leadership role in youth ministry.  In addition, he will assume more responsibility in areas of adult education including:

• Working closely with Chuck Monan in a preaching/teaching/ writing ministry role.  This role will include opportunities to preach, creative initiatives, teaching adult classes, and utilizing his writing gifts in bulletins, internet blogs, and other outlets.
• Working with the Adult Education Ministry leaders in areas previously coordinated by Jeff including curriculum development, class offerings, teaching staff recruitment, web site utilization, and elective course offerings.

These areas of work will allow Steven to work in areas where he is gifted as well as utilize the training and skills he has developed through the pursuit of his Masters of Divinity degree that he recently completed at the Harding Graduate School in Memphis.

Jeff Spry
The reassignment of some of Jeff’s duties to Ryan and Steven will allow Jeff to focus on other ministry areas, particularly the area of Community Strategies for which Jeff is especially passionate.  Jeff will mentor Ryan in his new focus of congregational involvement and will continue to touch all these areas with which he has been so integrally involved for so long.

New Youth Minister
We currently are beginning the search for a youth minister to fill Ryan’s position.  David Beggs will be forming a search committee to handle this process.  Wednesday night the youth ministers and David talked with the youth group and youth parents about these changes.  Recommendations for names for youth minister candidates were solicited from the group, and we would invite anyone to provide the committee with the names of possible candidates.

One particular individual who served here as an intern with our youth program has been identified as a top candidate for the position.  One of the benefits of our intern program is the opportunity to see young aspiring youth ministers in action.  As you will recall, Steven Hovater came to be our youth minister in this very way, having served as an intern at PV.  Of course, we are at the beginning of this search and the process is in the very formative stages, but we hope we will be able to fill the position quickly.  We currently are planning for January, 2009 to be the start date for the new minister.

God has blessed Pleasant Valley greatly through the years.  We are fortunate that the changes outlined here will be accomplished with the benefit of transitions over time as well as the availability of mentoring partnerships to help make these ministries reach new levels of effectiveness.  It is our desire to improve the communication of family matters, and to that end we wanted to let you know about these recently approved changes.  May God continue to bless our church family with continued growth in service in His Kingdom.

For the elders,
Steve Burton