Our New Worship Coordinator

Emmanuel Baptist Church has been without a full-time Worship Pastor since December 2006, when our former Worship Pastor had a moral failure which devastated our church. We tried to help his family and allowed wis wife to serve as our Interim Worship Leader. She did a good job and we ALL learned alot through that process. I learned "why" staff members who have moral failures MUST move on. Neither the individual nor the congregation can heal when they stay together. Following Melodie, Brian Watts served as our Interim Worship Leader. Brian is a college student and one of the most gifted musicians I've ever met. Brian has one more year and I'd recommend him to anyone. Following Brian, Lori Jones stepped into the role.

Lori and her husband, Kevin, moved to Hartsville approximately two years ago. Lori has served in churches such as Rehoboth Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA and Florence Baptist Temple in SC. Lori's first love and entire background is in music, (although she just graduated with a law degree and recently passed her bar exam). She loves the old and the new, choirs and praise teams, even Southern Gospel and Contemporary. Under Lori's interim leadership, our choir has been running more than it did when we had a full-time person on our staff.

So... after searching long and hard for a full-time Worship Pastor, God has changed our course! On Wednesday, I told the choir and band that the Deacons and I felt led to offer Lori the position of Worship Coordinator on a permanent basis. The choir errupted in spontaneous applause. Today, we made the announcement to the church and got the same response. Even some of those who have been the most critical of our music program thought she was a great choice.

Following a model that I observed in another local church, Lori will be serving as our overall worship "coordinator" on a permanent basis. She will lead our choir, select music, schedule all groups, oversee the band, etc. In addition, Lori will be working with volunteer leaders who will work under her to lead our congregational worship, band rehearsals, and more. This model involves more lay-people and also allows us the financial freedom to hire a full-time Children's pastor. We are very excited about what the future holds and I ask you to pray for Lori (and our church) as we embark on this journey!