The Dream Team

Perhaps the most difficult and daunting process in the beginning was assembling a staff around us.  Imagine the task of defining what “positions” you wanted to fill, finding a qualified, talented, amazing person who would work for free, and differentiating between the church planting leadership team and who would become “staff”.

At our previous church, our Junior High pastor, Kris Gray, had become invaluable to our hearts.  God was stirring in her a change in the future and together we walked down the path of what this change would be. We mourned the loss of our youth ministry days and lost sleep over the possibilities that lie ahead of us. 

It was unclear what Kris’ role would become at the beginning.  The only thing that we knew is that if Kris weren’t there, we were pretty sure we didn’t want to be, either.  It was her anchor in our lives that guided us to stay in Vancouver. 

Kris is currently our Small Groups Pastor, our sermon augmentor, and a general sounding board for the latest crazy ideas that we throw on the table.  She is the imagination behind most of our sermon stage sets and a look out for anyone who would dare cut a corner on creativity.  She is a counselor for the frustrated and will laugh at any joke you’d like to throw at her.

As a pastor’s wife, she fills a role in my life that is almost undefinable.  She knows me inside and out and thinks about ministry so similarily that communication is easy.  It is hard to escape the leadership mantel as a lead pastor’s family, and Kris gives me the opportunity to do just that.   She says it like it is, but somehow you don’t realize it because she is so invested into your wellbeing that you tend to forget that she is correcting you.  She has made a full time job of getting into people’s business to make sure that they are living according to God’s plan.

Kris is an example to our young mom’s about how to raise your kids with unbending consistency, which is her “secret” ministry.  You aren’t even sure you have been impacted by her mothering until your kids are misbehaving and you find yourself thinking, “What would Kris do?”  And that’s when you know that she’s wormed her way into your very DNA.  And that’s why we all love her.