Philip Baptiste has accepted a position as Associate pastor of the Boulder, Colorado SDA Church. He traces his ancestry from Africa, to the Caribbean, Canada and the United States. He attended Canadian University College, and graduated from Oakwood College. His pastoral experience includes Canada and the United States.
The Boulder Church, of more than 600 members, is closely tied with another church for being the 3rd largest church in the Rocky Mountain Conference. It probably has less than 1 per-cent of its membership who are African-Americans. However, in other ways it is a diverse congregation that seeks to reach out to the local community, and to the larger world community. It has sponsored several congregational mission trips to Africa, and a Pacific Island. It cooperates in community activities. Typically it will have non-SDAs attending its Sabbath School, and Worship service.
The Adventist congregation is quite diverse. In theology, it ranges from conservative to liberal. In socioeconomics it ranges from the low to high end of the scale. It consists of well-paid corporate executives to people on welfare, all of whom are integrated, according to their gifts, into the corporate ministry of the congregation.
Recently, both members of the pastoral staff left, and the church has essentially been governing itself. It has primarily been focused on finding a Senior Pastor, for what it hopes will be a three person pastoral staff. In this process, it developed working papers or what it wants in both the Senior Pastor and for the Associate Pastor for Youth Ministries.
During this time period, Pastor Baptiste was lent to the church, on a limited basis, to work with its youth. His energy, enthusiasm, and dedication to the youth persuaded the church to step outside of the process to find the Senior Pastor, and ask him to become the Associate Pastor for Youth Ministries. Our church is well represented when it evaluates a person for a position solely on the basis of skills, and a match to the position, as it did in this case.
