According to several members of the Village Church, tomorrow is the last Sabbath for the interim senior pastor of the Village Church in Berrien Springs.
The Michigan Conference appointed him senior interim pastor on June 1 of last year. According to local church members, it has not been a good fit.
We are also told that Kameron DeVasher is leaving the Michigan Conference administration. In a short amount of time, MISDA has lost their Executive Secretary (Justin Ringstaff), Communications Director (Andy Im), their ministerial Director (Cody Francis), and their Human Resources Director (Laura Im), and now their Sabbath School and Personal Ministries Director (DeVasher). Not only that, they have lost five of their best pastors over the last 20-months and are experiencing a significant loss of trust and finances throughout the conference.
The Berrien Springs Village Church was one of the most thriving churches in North America. They had a huge online following. They led out in missions, sexual purity conferences, Bible conferences, and religious liberty symposiums, and bought a building to open a health clinic. Their congregational health was robust and encouraging to millions around the world. This faithful momentum was arrested by the actions of the MISDA conference president in 2024.
All of this is because the Michigan Conference president (and executive committee) decided to ban Conrad Vine from speaking in the entire state (for the crime of questioning how the General Conference and SDA system handled the Covid crisis). This led to MISDA seeking to have Conrad Vine stripped of his roles as elder and religious liberty leader at the Berrien Springs Village Church. This led to the Village Church senior pastor (Ron Kelly) objecting to the heavy-handed tactics of the MISDA conference. This led to MISDA using insurance for the health clinic as leverage to get the Village Church to strip Conrad Vine of his duly-elected church offices. This led to the firing of Ron Kelly who refused to be bullied. This led to massive drops in tithe across the MISDA conference, as trust in Micheff’s leadership plummeted. This led to the Michigan conference president doubling down and refusing to allow Conrad Vine to speak in a religious liberty symposium that he organized. This led the Village Church to conduct a business meeting, where it was voted 118-19 to allow Conrad Vine to speak in the Village Church pulpit. This led to the interim pastor (Gallimore) refusing to allow a local elder (Conrad Vine) speak in the Village Church pulpit. This led Micheff to ask the GC Church Manual Committee if he had the authority to overrule a church business meeting. This led the GC to respond, “Ask the Union”. Micheff asked the Union. The Union gave a vague response, declining to weigh in on the central question—can a hostile conference ban a local elder from speaking in their own congregation without going through local due process? This led the interim senior pastor to continue preventing Conrad Vine to speak in the Village Church pulpit. He (Gallimore) was there to do the bidding of the Conference. Now he is leaving.
What is needed?
A couple things will help.
A pastor who has the best interest of the members at heart. People can sense if your loyalty to the system/conference is greater than your commitment to them.
A wise executive committee will start looking for a new conference president, and begin the process of rebuilding trust in the Michigan Conference. After all the fallout, attrition, and financial loss, this is the best course. As someone said recently “Bandaid time is over. Surgery is needed.”
Another option is to allow the local elders to lead the church for a period of one to three years. Our church did that in years past and it worked out well. People stepped up to the plate and worked together.
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