In order to stay focused and work closely together, the Shepherds Service Team meets monthly via conference call.  These calls have been unifying to our group over the past two years and have had a unifying impact in our churches as well.  In the past six months these meetings were augmented by a gathering we had in Denver and most recently we met together in Miami.  These face-to-face meetings are important and provide a relationship-building environment among our churches. 

In May of last year Walter and Kim Evans were added to our team and in December we added our first international elder, Israel Ereola.  This begins to fulfill a goal of having worldwide representation of elders on our team.  Israel and his wife, Abigail, serve the church in Lagos, Nigeria.  It is encouraging to see elders being appointed in many cities for God to provide more international elders as a part of our service team.  Recently, elders were appointed in two of our larger churches in the United States.  The church in Seattle and the Northern Virginia church now have elderships shepherding the flock.  This brings the number of churches with an eldership to thirty-six and the number of elders serving in those churches totaling over 130!  In addition, there are about three or four more churches that are currently working with future elder candidates to appoint an eldership in the coming months.  That is tremendous growth over the past few years but still represents less than ten percent of our churches at this level of maturity.

One of our original goals was to be a group of brothers who build relationships and ongoing communication between elders and churches cooperating together in mission and brotherhood.  In our efforts to work in this area to accomplish this goal, we have met with many different churches and elderships to promote unity and the cooperation of churches throughout the world.  The team has provided the safe environment to deeply discuss these sensitive areas and as a result many more churches have declared their intent to work together in a family of churches to the glory of God.  We also continue to engage in conflict resolution on a requested basis and have seen increasing humility and openness toward outside assistance to bring about less emotion and more maturity in difficult situations within and between churches.

Since our report last summer, we are very enthusiastic about the deepening unity between Evangelists and Elders both in our churches and among these groups worldwide.  In February, the Evangelists Service Team and the Elders Service Team met together to develop plans, pray and share our hearts together.  We fully support the principle of a collaborative process between these groups.  We further desire to develop the biblical leadership gifts of Evangelist, Elder and Teacher in guiding church building practices vital to the spiritual well-being of our individual churches and brotherhood.

Shepherds Service Team

Al Baird – Los Angeles

Bill Hooper -- Dallas

Israel Ereola -- Lagos

Jeff Balsom – Chicago

John Brush – South Florida

Ron Brumley – Seattle

Sam Laing -- Atlanta

Walter Evans – Philadelphia

Wyndham Shaw, Chairman – Boston