A Search Begins

As many of you may have heard, Suzanne Joy’s time with us at Northminster is coming to a close.  I am extremely grateful for her work and all that we have done together.
So let me brag about her for a moment.

Since I joined you all in 2020, Suzanne has been instrumental in our ability to weather the storm of unprecedented times and adapt to a new landscape.  When we went all online overnight, Suzanne was our support, making sure communications went out and learning new technologies to make sure we stayed connected.  She took it upon herself to learn how to update and edit our website so everyone could find updated information as things changed.  Later on, she brought to my attention that when you googled “Churches in Troy Michigan,” Northminster was pretty low on the list.  So - she learned how SCO (Search Channel Optimization) affected our ranking on Google.  She worked on our internet presence to improve our SCO and raised our rankings.

When it became clear that social media had become a vital tool for communication in or modern world, Suzanne and I worked to create a social media calendar so that we were consistently posting congregational updates, prayers, the Pastor’s letter blog, and relevant news articles.  This often means that she takes my words, uses her graphic design skills to format them to be pretty and social-media friendly, and posts them.  I know that many of you are on Facebook.  Did you know that she has been running our Instagram account as well?  You can find that HERE.

Suzanne has also jumped in to learn the "ins" and "outs" of running our YouTube channel.  She schedules our livestreams, creates beautiful thumbnails for videos, and organizes our videos into neat playlists.

All of this she has done over the years, taking on the responsibility to learn more and help us more effectively reach out online and in person.  She does so much behind the scenes in the office as well just to make sure things go smoothly.
So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for all that you have done.  It has been a joy to work alongside you for these five years.
So, Northminster, what is next?
The Operations Committee has put together a personnel team.  That team has created a job description and is in the process of posting that online on various job search websites.  If you know someone who may be interested in this kind of work, feel free to forward them THIS job description and have them email a cover letter and their resume to [email protected] by January 5, 2026.

In order to do this job search well, it will take us into the new year.  I feel that it is better to take our time, do this search calmly, and find a good fit for our congregation.  However, that means that there will be a few weeks where we will not have an office administrator.

I am working with the personnel team to create a plan.

• Part of this plan will be to go to minimum function.
• Minimum function means that only necessary & essential tasks get done.
• I will be able to assemble and print the bulletins for Sunday and well as assemble and publish the Tuesday Notes.  There likely will be a temporary increase in my weekly hours.  I will work with the personnel team to create a compensation package for my additional hours.
• I will work with Operations and the financial team to make sure bills are paid and checks are cut.

Our hope is that this arrangement will only be needed for a couple of weeks in order to finish our search process, at which time, we hope to find a qualified candidate, negotiate compensation, sign the hiring paperwork, and begin their training.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out and ask.

And again, Suzanne, we are so grateful for your time, energy, and imagination that you have poured into your work here at Northminster.  We give you our blessings and prayers as your journey continues.

Blessings,
Pastor Chris