The Office of Connectional Ministries is excited to announce that the Rev. Bill Gibson has been hired as\u00a0the new Director of Strategic Faith Community Development for the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference, starting September 1, 2015. A search committee conducted a national search for candidates, and selected him from a gifted pool of candidates.\u00a0This position is accountable to the PNW Conference Director of Connectional Ministries and the Bishop of the Pacific\u00a0Northwest Annual Conference in consultation with the Board of Congregational Development.<\/p>\n
Bill comes to us from the Western North Carolina Conference<\/a> where he has served in\u00a0three appointments\u00a0over the last 13 years. Each of his appointments have been to new\u00a0church development projects, directly\u00a0correlated with new ways to understand and\u00a0cultivate vitality.<\/p>\n Prior to being named as our Director of\u00a0Strategic Faith Community\u00a0Development, Bill served for over 8 years as the lead & teaching pastor of\u00a0THE\u00a0WALK\u00a0[FaithWalk]<\/a>\u00a0in Gibsonville, NC, a diverse, Reconciling Church, which focuses on the\u00a0unchurched,\u00a0disconnected, and marginalized. Last year he was tapped by the\u00a0General\u00a0Board of Discipleship and Path 1<\/a>\u00a0to consult as a Path 1 Associate in our denomination\u2019s\u00a0church planting movement. He is passionate about\u00a0engaging the Gospel message with\u00a0the skeptical, unchurched, disconnected, and frustrated, in an ever-shifting culture.<\/p>\n As a\u00a0second career pastor, Bill spent more than 16 years working in business development\u00a0and marketing, where his concentration focused on interactive branding and image\u00a0marketing. He received\u00a0his M.Div. from Duke University<\/a> (Durham, NC), and completed\u00a0his D.Min. in semiotics and future studies at\u00a0George Fox University<\/a> (Portland, OR). His\u00a0research focus was on cultural linguistics and the dialogic\u00a0formation of Christian identity\u00a0in an American consumer context.<\/p>\n Bill and his wife Traci were born and\u00a0raised in East\u00a0Tennessee before moving to North Carolina in 1994. They have been married for 28\u00a0years\u00a0and have three amazing children: Tyler, who lives and works in Santa Barbara,\u00a0CA (not pictured); Allison, a\u00a0recent college graduate who will be moving to San Diego,\u00a0CA this fall for an internship; and Jackson, who is\u00a0a rising sophomore in high school. Bill\u00a0has a life-long love of the great outdoors and enjoys hiking, running,\u00a0and building\u00a0community. He, Traci, and the kids are now excited to be a part of the Pacific Northwest\u00a0family.<\/p>\n Bill offered this short greeting:<\/p>\n \u201cPacific Northwest Annual Conference: Greetings! I am writing you from North Carolina\u00a0as my family and I\u00a0begin preparations for our move to the Seattle area. It is with great\u00a0joy and excitement that we anticipate\u00a0meeting you. Traci and I are overwhelmed to have\u00a0the opportunity to be a part of the incredible work you\u00a0and God are doing in the Pacific\u00a0Northwest! I cannot wait to join you in a labor of love, as together we strive\u00a0for health,\u00a0vitality, and the multiplication of ministry \u2014 to make disciples for the transformation of\u00a0the world!\u00a0Blessings to each of you, and we will see you soon!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n We hope you will join us in welcoming Bill as he brings his considerable talents and gifts to the important\u00a0work of developing new faith communities to reach new people\u00a0in the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference and collaboratively sharing his gifts and experience across the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Office of Connectional Ministries is excited to announce that the Rev. Bill Gibson has been hired as\u00a0the new Director of Strategic Faith Community Development for the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference, starting September 1, 2015. A search committee conducted a national search for candidates, and selected him from a gifted pool of candidates.\u00a0This position is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":10476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/gibson-family.jpg?fit=1024%2C560&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-2IW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10474"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10485,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10474\/revisions\/10485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}