The leadership of JKPC is made up of the Session, Staff, and Deacons. Each group serves a different role in the congregation to help fulfill our mission of “Shaping Generations to Lead Lives that Reveal God’s Grace.”
Session’s contact information is available on Realm. To contact the deacons, email needadeacon@jkpcusa.org.
Session
According to our Book of Order (G-6.0300) as there were in Old Testament times elders for the government of the people, so the New Testament Church provided persons with particular gifts to share in governing and ministry. Elders are chosen by the people. Together with ministers of the Word and Sacrament, they exercise leadership, government, and discipline and have responsibilities for the life of a particular church as well as the church at large, including ecumenical relationships. They shall serve faithfully as members of the Session and they serve in the areas of ministry they lead.
Current or “ruling elders” are JKPC members chosen to lead alongside our installed pastors in governing, discipline and strengthening and nurturing the faith and life of the congregation. Currently there are thirteen ruling elders who represent the congregation on the session and serve three year terms, with elders ‘graduating’ and being replaced each year. Elders function as liaisons between session, departments/ministries, and the congregation. An elder is a person of faith, dedication and good judgment. Their manner of life is meant to be a demonstration of the Christian gospel, both within the church and the world.
Deacons
As the Book of Order puts it, “The office of deacon as set forth in Scripture is one of sympathy, witness, and service after the example of Jesus Christ. Persons of spiritual character, honest repute, of exemplary lives, brotherly and sisterly love, warm sympathies, and sound judgment should be chosen for this office” (G-6.0401). It is a ministry of caring; a ministry of love; a ministry of compassion; and a ministry of prayer, and community service (G-6.0402).
Deacons serve and minister to those in distress, to members who have suffered loss, to neighbors in the hospital, to prisoners, to friends who have lost their jobs, to new parents who are confused by a wonderful, sudden, and challenging change in the responsibilities of life, to new members who need a word of welcome, to members who are shut-in and lonely and cannot leave their homes, to people in the community who have lost their way and can no longer find God, to those who are economically oppressed and do not have adequate places to live or enough to eat, to any people who need to experience the love of Christ in concrete ways.