Cody Brobst Has Accepted Our Call
Update: After our congregational meeting on September 24, we extended a formal call to Rev. Cody Brobst. We are excited to report that he has accepted the call. He and his wife (and family) will move later in 2023, and we anticipate a January 1, 2024 start date. More details to come!
Read more about the process below.
During our December 2022 congregational meeting, we announced that the Session of River Oaks was starting the process of identifying and hiring a new full-time Associate Pastor of Discipleship Ministries. As a 340+ member congregation, we have numerous opportunities and needs that justify adding to our pastoral staff. For details regarding what this role entails, read this position description (and “The process to this point,” below).
We are excited to announce that our finalist for the position is Cody Brobst, who will be visiting ROC with his wife Courtney the weekend of September 16-21. All ROC members are invited to meet Cody during two events on Sunday, September 17:
- Sunday school: Cody taught a class from 10:15-45am (recording)
- Q&A over dinner: At our annual vision dinner, Cody and Courtney greeted the congregation and fielded questions
We held a congregational meeting on September 24 during Sunday school, 10:15am to consider extending a formal call, resulting in a “yes” vote.
Learn more about Cody
Cody and his wife Courtney have three daughters. Cody has served in pastoral ministry at Living Branch Church in Indiana (among other churches) as well as a reserve chaplain for the US Navy. He is a graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary and Ball State University.
You can get to know more about Cody at the following links:
The process to this point
You may be wondering, don’t we already have an associate pastor? And an assistant? The answer to both is, of course, yes. However, Associate Pastor Greg Lanier works full time as a professor at RTS-Orlando and academic dean at RTS-Global; he only works part time at ROC. The same is true for our Assistant Pastor Ben Shaw, who works full time as professor at Reformation Bible College and only part time at ROC. Our goal is to add someone to our pastoral staff who can be a full time presence alongside our Senior Pastor (the roles of Lanier and Shaw will be unchanged–they’re not going anywhere!).
Pursuant to BCO 25, a pastoral search committee was formed in early 2023 to begin the process of identifying candidates. The committee consisted of Jim Beers (chair), Gary Roth, Mike Bougoulias, Jane O’Dowd, Susan Cooper, Frank Liljeros, and Jessie Gudgel.
Because we are looking to hire an associate pastor (who will be a voting member of our Session), a congregational vote will be needed to issue the formal call.
