John Knox Transitional Interim Pastor – Rev. Dr. T. Ewen Holmes

The Transition Team is pleased to announce that they have concluded a national search for our Transitional Interim Pastor and Head of Staff. The Transition Team recommended to the JK Session for Rev. Dr. T. Ewen Holmes to continue to serve John Knox.   The Session voted unanimously to approve this recommendation.

Ewen has been serving John Knox as our Bridge Interim Pastor and Head of Staff since January 1st and will continue to serve John Knox as our Transition Interim Pastor and Head of Staff. In this new role, Ewen will serve John Knox until our Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC) completes its work and calls a new Sr. Pastor.

The committee has been quite busy and made good progress toward identifying a potential bridge and/or transitional pastor. Since our last update we have completed the following tasks.

• Completed interviews with current JK staff members
• Completed position description for JK Transitional Pastor and posted through Foothills Presbytery website for nationwide search of potential candidates
• We have begun receiving qualifications of potential candidates
• We have completed phone interviews of some of the potential candidates and their references
• We will begin face to face interviews of candidates this month

We ask that you continue to keep our committee and our church in your prayers as we ask God to help us in our search for a transitional pastor.

We wanted to bring you up to date on activities since the announcement that Gordon accepted a new calling. First of all, we want to thank Gordon and Betsy for their decade of service to John Knox. We are a strong, healthy congregation with a bright future, thanks in no small part to their dedication.

The JK Session has established a Transitional Pastor Search Committee that had our first meeting September 30, 2025. Committee members consist of Ken Rowe (chair), Bill Mathews, Alice Jackson (clerk), Cannon Bixler, Jo Carson, Anna Kenan, Lincoln Evans and ex officio members Justin Cazel and Carter Rief. At our first meeting a very helpful presentation was made by Ms. Robin Morris of Foothills Presbytery walking the committee through the process of identifying and hiring a Transitional Pastor. The Transitional Pastor will support the continuation of JK operations and Worship until a permanent called Pastor can be installed at John Knox.

Next steps include interviewing current JK staff members to understand their support requirements during this transitional period. We anticipate completing these interviews before mid-October. We will then write a Position Description which details our congregational requirements for a Transitional Pastor. After approval of the Position Description by the JK Session and the Foothills Presbytery, the Position Description will be posted on the Presbyterian USA system to potential candidates for the Transitional Pastor at JK.  The Search Committee will be notified of potential candidates that have expressed interest in the position. The committee will follow up with interviews of favorable candidates and after prayerful discernment make a recommendation to the Session and Presbytery.

We will continue to communicate updates as we work through this process to find JK the best Transitional Pastor. Finally, we ask that you join us in praying that God will send us a strong candidate that He is no doubt already preparing for this position.