With great excitement for what GOD is doing- and will do- through Missio Dei Wrigleyville, we are happy to share that Melissa Pillman will become our new Lead Pastor starting June 1.  

Melissa has been a part of our congregation for almost 20 years and has served this body in many ways throughout those years. Most recently, Melissa serves as an elder, the interim Lead Pastor, our primary teacher, and has been shepherding our church family through Covid during this difficult last year.

Leading up to now

In March, we shared that Melissa asked to apply for the Lead Pastor position. Melissa came to a place, along with her family, of feeling God’s timing confirmed to pursue her pastoral call on a more permanent basis within our church family.

Over the last several months we held several discussions and interviews with Melissa along with Andy joining the final interview steps. There was amazing unity across the Interview Teams, the Wrigleyville Elder Team, and the Directional Elder Team. In addition, we received counsel from leaders outside of Missio Dei on Melissa’s leadership and giftings. Please see below for a summary of our process so far.

Leadership team

As our Lead Pastor, Melissa will be our primary teacher, serve alongside the broader elder team, and lead the staff team. Melissa’s teaching that points us toward the Gospel, her stabilizing role in the community, and her desire to grow as a leader and to develop other leaders will all help to grow and strengthen our community.

We will begin a search for an associate pastor to bring additional perspectives and giftings to our staff team. We are primarily looking for giftings in both city outreach/engagement and in shaping our corporate gatherings. We are also working to identify a new MD Kids Director as the Blessmans transition to church planting in the fall.  We believe this staff team, with these giftings and skills, will provide the combination to lead us through this season of transitioning out of Covid and into individual and community growth in Gospel understanding and impact.

Looking ahead

Beyond these updates to our staff leadership team, we are excited to see how God continues to grow and shape us through Lucas Wright’s elder candidacy, new deacons going through a candidacy process, new ministry volunteers stepping up, a new GC launching, and more. God’s faithfulness, provision, and care for our community has been on display these past two years. We are thankful for you as you have journeyed through this season of transition, Covid, and toward leadership clarity.

June 6 at 10am and following service: Melissa’s installation as Lead Pastor and celebration of our next season as a community. This is an important ebenezer moment for our community as we look back and look ahead. We will share more about the after service celebration soon.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us. We continue to hold hope for more to come as things continue to open up, and we look forward, with faithful anticipation, to our future together as a community, being spiritually formed together under the leadership of Christ.

In Him,

Jason Pucker, Dave Van Winkle

MD Wrigleyville Elders

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Summary of where we have been so far

Over the last two years, our congregation has been on a journey as we evaluated who we are as a community and who we are becoming. We consulted input from a Feedback Group and started the search for a Lead Pastor. During Covid, we had to pause various parts of the hiring process, feeling it was important for a candidate, the interview teams, and our community to have the opportunity to be in person before a decision was made. As a community, we journeyed through this season in prayer, anticipation, and holding open hands for how God would lead us. As we continued the process with the final candidates, including Melissa, we saw how many of Melissa’s giftings and her leadership were in line with what we saw as MD Wrigleyville needing at this time and in this next season.