Virginia's Atlantic Shores Baptist hires new Senior Pastor

Change is difficult. Change within a church is even more difficult.  

However, change is often a sign of health and growth. And greater growth brings greater challenges.

This is the story of Atlantic Shores Baptist Church (ASBC), in Virginia Beach, Virginia.  This church was founded with the purpose of glorifying God through transforming lives. What started as one family in 1981 has now grown to over 1,000 people calling it home.  

ASBC has sought to bring together imperfect people to do life together and grow together. They have a strong vision for reaching the community, and their hope is to make a lasting impact for the Kingdom as they continue to grow and follow where the Lord leads.

Recently, the church began to experience change; God began moving in a big way. It was clear that the direction that the church was going would require a new Senior Pastor. The leadership set out to find the person the Lord was calling to take ASBC into this new season.

The leadership put together the profile of the man they felt would be able to carry out the vision of the church. This man would be a leader of leaders, an excellent communicator, and someone who could be the visionary for the church moving forward. The leadership began searching for their next leader, reaching out to their networks and posting the position.

Scott Dishong, the Families Ministry Pastor who led the search committee, said that there came a point when “they were really struggling, and eventually just hit a wall.”

Unable to find quality candidates to fill this role and running out of time, Scott and the search team were exhausted. After sorting through resumes of unqualified candidates and countless meetings, the search team decided they would need to partner with a search firm to broaden their network and speed up their search.

Scott reached out to Vanderbloemen Search Group, and before long, ASBC decided to move forward with partnering with Vanderbloemen for their Senior Pastor search.

Each church needs a unique leader, because each church has a unique culture. Vanderbloemen sat down with  ASBC's search team and and got to know the church’s DNA, the church staff culture, and the vision of the church.

As Vanderbloemen searched for the person God was calling to Atlantic Shores, they searched for a culture, chemistry, and competency fit between Atlantic Shores and the potential candidates.

Vanderbloemen introduced Atlantic Shores to a select group of candidates, and from that group, Ron Jones was the man that the Lord led to lead ASBC into their new season of growth and outreach.  Ron has been a pastor of churches ranging from 300 - 4,000 in size, led staffs of all sizes, and is heavily involved with ministry minded non-profits.

The Lord has brought Atlantic Shores Baptist Church a new leader, and Vanderbloemen Search Group looks forward to seeing God use Ron in ASBC's new chapter of ministry.