History of Shadycrest Baptist Church - Pearland, Texas
Emily Gray was elected Director of Children's Ministries at the regular business meeting April 22, 2009. She is the wife of the Minister for Students, Clint Gray, and has been working effectively as de facto Children's Director for several years.
Bro. Steve Daily submitted his resignation Sunday evening May 17, 2009. In his letter of resignation he explained that he felt that his pastoral authority was no longer respected and because of that he could no longer minister effectively at Shadycrest. After Bro. Steve and his family left the meeting, Kirby Montgomery, our deacon chairman, explained that the issue involved pastoral authority among the staff and deacons and that in spite of efforts by the deacons to resolve issues in the best interest of the church, they were unable to reach a resolution that was satisfactory to Bro. Steve. Bro. Don Hentze, Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Baptist Association, had some encouraging words for the church. The deacons collected written questions from church members and attempted to answer them by catagories. This chronicler's opinion, based on experience with the process, is that this was a Paul and Barnabus type issue (see Acts 15:36-40) with Bro. Steve in the part of Paul and the deacons in the part of Barnabus. The process didn't keep Paul and Barnabus together on their future mission trips and our process didn't keep Bro. Steve with the deacons and Shadycrest for our future mission work.
Since Bro. Steve was not going directly to another church, the deacons felt (and were asked by Bro. Steve to consider) that the church should provide him something to help him through his transition to another place of work. The deacons decided to recommend that the church continue Bro. Steve's salary until he was called by another church or took a secular job or started his own church. The deacons realized that this could not continue indefinitely so a limit of three months was set based on one week's salary for each of the twelve years Bro. Steve was with Shadycrest. In addition until he had other employmnet, he was to receive his salary for the remainder of May and for the remaining vacation that he was due. This was presented to the church at the regular business meeting on May 20th and was approved.
On June 28th the church elected Carol Montgomery, Mike Norman, and Marilyn Potts to the Interim Pastor Search Committee and Jerry Jones, Wayne Netherland, Rita Northcutt, Steve Shuttlesworth, Arno Thuesen, Barbara Pylate, and Amy Redus to the Full-time Pastor Search Committee. Barbara and Amy are the alternates.
Church members first were asked to submit a list of five members each to be considered for nomination to the Search committees. One week was allowed for that and 110 lists were received with 73 members recommended for nomination.
The Nominating Committee working with the Committee on Committees interviewed the top 17 of the list of 73 and 10 of those agreed to be nominated.
A motion to form an Interim Pastor Search Committee and elect members for both committees was presented at the regular business meeting on June 24th. The list of ten nominees was presented and members were told to vote for five of the ten. It was explained that the top five would serve as the Pastor Search Committee and the next two would serve as alternates. The three not elected to the Pastor Search Committee would serve as the Interim Search Committee.
The meeting recessed to allow the voting to continue through the morning worship service on Sunday, June 28th.
Deacon officers for 2008 - 2009 are Chairman Kirby Montgomery, Vice-chairman Robbie Northcutt, and Secretary Steve Shuttlesworth. Shadycrest is a conservative, traditional Southern Baptist Church. The linked document lists what the deacons believe are some of the Biblical requirements for the office of deacon: Deacon Requirements
Deacon officers for 2007 - 2008 were Chairman Wayne Netherland, Vice-chairman Kirby Montgomery, and Secretary Robbie Northcutt.
Deacon officers for 2009 - 2010 will be Chairman Robbie Northcutt, Vice-chairman Steve Shuttlesworth, and Secretary Billy Netherland.
The Pastor Search Committee has begun it's work and elected Jerry Jones as chair and Arno Thuesen as Co-chair.
Bro. 'Sonny' Steed is serving as part-time Minister of Administration. Bro. Jerry McCurdy continues as Minister of Music plus other responsibilities in leading seniors ministry and education. Bro. Clint Gray is Minister to Students and his wife, Emily, is Children's Director.
Church membership has officially reached the 1000 mark. However, as is often the case with church membership, this probably represents about 600 active or occasional members and the remainder are seldom in attendance.
The Long Range Planning Committee has worked for several years to develop plans for further construction of facilities for Shadycrest. The general plan was for a new sanctuary facing Yost Road with seating room for about 600. The building would include additional room for office or fellowship space. An ad hoc New Building Committee is now working on detailed plans and an agreement with the architect. A Capitol Fund Raising Committee developed a giving plan and now a Capitol Finance Committee is working on a plan for financing the project.
We will continue to collect gifts to the Building Fund and to work on plans for construction of the building. It is possible that we will have the financial resources and plans ready to begin construction as soon as the new pastor is on the field. What a legacy of Bro. Steve's ministry that would be - to have a united church continuing the work he started! And what a gift to the new pastor it would be to find a united church working to reach the lost of Pearland and ready to build and expand to provide adequate space for those who should be ministered to.
VBS was held Sunday June 14th through Thursday June 18th. 216 children were enrolled during the week and there were 81 volunteer workers for a total enrollment of 297. There were six professions of faith.
Dr. Autrey is the Dean and Professor of Pastoral Ministries of the J. Dalton Havard School for Theological Studies, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's Houston Campus. He has served as pastor of several Southern Baptist churches in Texas and Oklahoma. He received a BBA from Stephen F. Austin State University in Management and Marketing. He earned his MDivBL and his DMin from Southwestern and is entering his dissertation stage of a PhD in Homiletics and Evangelism.
He and his wife are shown here with Interim Pastor Search Committee chair Mike Norman at the reception welcoming the Autreys to Shadycrest.
| THE FIRST FIVE YEARS (1971-1976) |
| TRANSITION FROM A GROWING MISSION TO A STABLE CHURCH (1977-1982) |
| THIRTEEN YEARS OF MINISTRY (1983-1995) |
| THE SECOND TRANSITION AND STATE AFFILIATION CHANGE (1995-2000) |
| SHADYCREST RECENTLY (2001-2002) |
| Xtreme Youth Ministry (2003-2005) |
| A New Era Begins - May 2009 |