“In recent months, the Oregon Conference has worked through some truly difficult decisions as financial restructuring decisions were processed. After months of work our churches have now undergone a plan of redistricting – church districts have been created, updated, or expanded with pastoral leadership appointed for each district.
While a few details remain to be ironed out, we want to share all we can about how pastors will be assigned to revised districts in the coming weeks.
This list represents a lot of change: many of us will be getting to know a new pastor, learning how to share a pastor, or learning how to employ additional lay leadership in our church. As we learn, let’s pray together that each of us will be patient with each other and put Jesus at the center of our communities.”
Albany/Sweet Home District – TBC
Astoria/Long Beach/Seaside/Cathlamet/Estacada/Yacolt District – Dan George
Beaverton/Hillsboro District – Rodney Payne (Lead), Jack Brown (Local Associate), Jeff Bradburn (Intern)
Bend/LaPine/Sisters District – Brent Brusett
Brookings/Gold Beach/Cave Junction District – Barry Kimbrough
Canyonville/Winston/Myrtle Creek/Yoncalla District – Murray Miller
Central Point/Valley View/Ashland District – Tanner Martin
Common Ground/Christmas Valley District – Randy Folkenberg
Coos Bay/Bandon/Coquille District – Marvin Humbert
Corvallis/Lebanon District – Jon Griebel
East Salem/Mill City District – Chad Reisig (Lead), Parker LeClerc (Intern Associate)
Echo Church/Remix Church/Gather and Scatter District – Harold Altamirano
Eugene/Santa Clara/Junction City District – Greg Middlestetter
Gateway/SonRise/Rogue River District – Kip Bradford
Grants Pass Church – Edward Nelson
Hockinson Heights/Orchards District – Alex Portillo
Journey Church – Jim John (Lead), Emily Kuchurivski (Intern)
Inside Out Ministries / Dallas District– Ted Perry
Klamath Falls/Bonanza/Chiloquin/Lakeview District – Tom Bentley
Lincoln City/Nestucca/Grand Ronde District – Bill Mayne
McMinnville/Rivers Edge/Hopewell District– Nick Jones
Meadow Glade/Castle Rock District – Michael Brackett (Lead), Jim Bollin, Ben Moore (Local Associate), Evan Davies (Intern Associate) Kristen Zolbrecht (Intern)
Ohana/Woodburn District – Doug Franzke
Pleasant Hill/Fall Creek/Veneta District – Dave McCoy
Redmond/Cascade District – John Tillay
Salem Central/Falls City District – Ben Barcenas
Samoan Adventist/North Valley/Shady Point District – Talalelei Uta
Sharon/Your Bible Speaks District – Lead TBC, Reginald Richardson (Intern Associate)
Silverton/Stayton/Molalla District – Jose Galvez
Springfield/Storyline District – Lutz Binus (Lead), Ashok Willmott (Intern Associate)
Sunnyside/The Village/Healing Hope District – Seth Pierce (Lead), Kevin Wilson (Associate), Violeta Bilan (Associate), Rosemary Andrykanus (Associate)
Sutherlin/Glide/Turning Point District– Sean Murphy
The Dalles/Hood River/Wahkiackus District – Nick Gosney
Here is some feedback from the Oregon Conference Facebook page:
It's unreal. Wish there was a shaking my head emoji!
That’s what I noticed! Cathlamet, Yacolt, and Estacada are nowhere near the other three—or each other!
The lists make no sense-did someone just use some darts and a map of Oregon and this is how it was decided? I'm at the Molalla church and our "new" pastor live 1 hour away, and he now has 3 churches and supposedly he will be preaching at 2 of them every other week...so stupid...why not have Molalla/Woodburn and Canby together and keep one of the pastors instead of firing 2 of them-Molalla and Woodburn already shared a wonderful pastor, and he and his young family were forced to leave.
None of this makes sense and it's ridiculous. We're getting split from the sister church we've had for YEARS and getting assigned to a different district for no reason that anyone can give us a transparent explanation for.
One of our members when and spoke with whoever is in charge of this to voice her thoughts and was pretty much told that they don't care if we aren't happy about the changes...Makes me wonder about the people we have entrusted at the top, and who's side they are on.
I think we need an impartial outside auditor to look at the finances and find us a conference president who won't be cagey.
My question is what happened to the money? Need to follow the trail!
Yacolt is 2+ hours from all of the churches in our district and we are sharing a pastor with 5 other churches? 1 pastor for 6 churches so that means every 6 weeks we may have a pastor at our church if they want to drive up to 2.5 hours. It will impossible for a pastor to support anyone needing Bible studies or families in need. They might as well added us to the Montana conference. This is unacceptable in my opinion.
Yacolt has several churches nearby I feel the long term plan for the conference is for Yacolt to dissolve and the members to go elsewhere . I don’t think they realize how important and strong this church family is. I also think there should be some transparency that all members should be able to see exactly where every penny brought into the conference is going.
My faith in the leadership or lack there of is really starting to show. when the churches they attend have no change it shows me that here on earth it matters who you are and where you attend church not that every church should be treated equally. I really am wondering about all Gods children need to be treated equally.
At a time when the rural & suburban communities are socially fragmenting & struggling economically, the conference chose to intentionally remove rural pastors & concentrate resources in the most economically viable population centers. The message being sent is clear: “We are pulling out of supporting rural/suburban communities. We choose not to invest in small towns, to be part of your community.”
I’m from the Yacolt church and I strongly agree. One pastor for 6 churches? I feel like we are being left to fend for ourselves without any steady leadership from the conference. We are a small congregation but aren’t we individually just as important as anyone else? Are we not as deserving of shepherding? I’m so disappointed and feeling betrayed.
1st no camp meeting and now this???????
Money....follow the money trail, where and why was it spent? Not all is above board!
I do believe this may be the craziest circus I've seen in a long time. I'd like to say not my circus, not my monkeys, but we are all in this together. I think it's time we look long and hard at the head(s) of the conference and get to the bottom of the problem. This doesn't "just" happen overnight.
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Praying for all.
