We are excited to give an official welcome to our pastoral team, Steve Ruff and Brandon Smith. Steve will take over the college-age ministry, Standpoint, as well as the Community Involvement Ministries, Prison Ministry, and will also head up Parkside’s special projects. Brandon will oversee the middle school ministry directly and will also assist with the high school ministry.

From interns to full-time team members, Steve and Brandon have become familiar faces and valued members of the Parkside family. During their one-year internship, Brandon and Steve were given opportunities to observe and learn from all of Parkside’s pastors while they discerned where their talents and gifts might lie. “I had an interest in the community involvement ministries before they assigned those groups to me,” explains Steve, “and I think with the college-age group, it made sense for me to step into that role just because I’m a little bit older. Plus, during my internship, I really liked Standpoint and enjoyed working with Dan Southam who was in charge of the group at that time. The Prison Ministry is new to me and I’m growing into that role.”

For Brandon, youth ministry was never on his radar until he experienced it firsthand as an intern. “I never thought that I wanted to be a youth minister until I got to the youth rotation [of my internship]. I just kind of fell in love with Parkside’s youth,” Brandon explains. “I already loved Parkside, but then I was like, ‘I love this. This is great!’ Plus, I think the ministry is a good place to be to learn, grow, and hone my skills as a pastor so that down the road I can grow into different roles of maturity in leadership.”

Even though Steve and Brandon have been with Parkside for a year, being on staff full-time feels different. “As a pastoral intern, you get pulled into different ministries. Your responsibilities are spread out,” notes Brandon. “Not being an intern anymore, you feel like you’re able to move forward and take the lead of something. You really feel the weight of it though. I’m definitely excited, but it definitely feels different.”

Steve agrees. “I think in a lot of ways it does feel different, like Brandon is saying. As interns, we had our hands full, but we were here observing for the most part and expectations were lower. Now expectations are higher, which is good, and there’s a bit of ownership that you have for your ministries knowing that you’re not leaving in a few months. You can really invest in the people and the ministry.”

Both Steve and Brandon are taking the time to learn the nuances of their respective ministries, but both have goals and hopes for their groups. For the youth and college-age ministries in particular, Steve and Brandon recognize that their people face hard challenges brought on by life’s transitions from middle school to high school to college to adulthood. Brandon wants to help his students move forward in their faith so that they may feel prepared for these challenges and believes that walking alongside his Adult Ministry Team (AMT), who assists with caring for the youth group, is an integral part of that preparation. “I also want to help equip our AMTs so they can own the ministry in a way that really is meaningful for both them and for our kids. If your leader is not growing [in his/her faith], then your kids probably won’t be doing it either.”

For college students, the transition can be even more profound. “I think it’s a tough and crucial time in life when you’re doing this swing into almost adulthood,” notes Steve. “It’s a weird intersection of life. I’m really looking forward to working alongside the students, helping them grow in Christ, and really owning their faith as an adult. Transitioning them from just sharing in the family religion to asking, ‘Who am I now?’ Helping them mold their faith into adulthood -- that’s one of the big goals for me.”

Thank You, Parkside Church!

Brandon and Steve have both felt a warm welcome from the Parkside Church family and would like to say thank you. “I don’t know if people really understand what it’s like to come from college to a place I’d never been before,” says Brandon. “I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have any friends or family. But then to be accepted by Parkside, invited to dinners and picnics and all these sorts of things, and by people of all ages that you might not have anything in common with except that you’ve been redeemed by the grace of God -- it’s just amazing to feel what it means to be a part of the Church and then the local church. It’s probably the first time that I’ve been a part of a church that actually showed me that before, so I want to say thank you for that.”

Steve echoes that sentiment and is also grateful for unique opportunity that working at Parkside affords him. “I’m also very grateful for the very welcoming way that Parkside has treated us and I’m also very grateful for the unique opportunity that we have here at Parkside because we both get the privilege to teach on a regular basis to hone those skills, but we don’t have the added responsibility of senior leadership that you might have at other churches. If I were just an associate [at another church], I wouldn’t get to speak every week, maybe once every three months, that’s it. But here, I get to teach every week and not have the weight of everything else that a normal senior pastor has.”

“I think for both of us,” adds Brandon, “being part of a team, not feeling like you’re alone or trying to do stuff on your own, is helpful. I don’t feel that struggle at all at Parkside and that is an overlooked blessing that we have. I’m very thankful for that.”

How You Can Pray

For Steve: “I feel like this is a chapter in my life where there are a lot of changes and transitions. I have recently gotten married and would appreciate prayer for my new marriage to Alisa and all that comes with that. And then prayer for a new marriage in ministry and that dynamic there. It just feels busy, so prayer to keep my priorities straight -- to keep my relationship with Christ first and foremost and to let everything else fall into place. Please pray for the transitions of my new job responsibilities, living in a new place, being married; and, for Alisa who has also has a new job, new friends, and a new church.

For Brandon: “Just continuing to know and love Jesus better. To take care of my personal life and to be responsible in that way. Because as I grow, I think that the middle school ministry, while it might not grow in numbers, it might grow in depth. And to develop our AMTs in a way that really is meaningful for them and for our kids.”