Readers Write: Rev. Barbara Boss Retires from Family of God Community Church

“We are called to be Jesus-with-skin-on”… “always remember WHO you are and WHOSE you are”… “we agree to disagree and are united to serve…” Perhaps more than any other, those three very familiar and very motivating phrases have spearheaded and shaped the ministry that the Reverend Barbara A. Boss has provided as the founding pastor of Family of God Community Church.  
On Sunday, June 24, 2018, from noon-2:00, the friends and community who have been touched by Pastor Barb’s ministry are invited to an open house at the Family of God Community Church at 90 Quarterline, Newaygo, MI, to celebrate her official retirement from her formal ministry role as the lead pastor of Family of God.

During the past 10 years under Pastor Barb’s leadership, she and Family of God Community Church have made a dynamic and wide-ranging impact in the life of people in the community of Newaygo.  These outreach ministries have included: the Wonderful Wacky Wednesday Program (a children’s afterschool program); weekly community dinners; the Hope 101 Transitional Housing Program (two remodeled homes that serve homeless families); concerts-in-the-park and summer worship-in-the-park; an annual mission team to serve in Matamoros, Mexico (to build homes for the poorest-of-the-poor); children’s activities at the Downtown Christmas Walk; and the annual Trunk or Treat night at Halloween.

Under Pastor Barb’s tenure, the church also serves as the host and/or collaborator for programs that include: Bible Release Time (for 70 elementary children); Women in the Word (a community-wide Bible study); an addictions/recovery group that meets in the church; participation in Kids Hope at the park; and past community education events during 30 Days of Peace.  In conjunction with the Newaygo Ministerial Association, Pastor Barb also organizes and directs the annual Community Christmas Concert Choir and the Community Children’s Choir.

Pastor Barb graduated from Hope College with a BA in elementary education.  She earned her Masters in Religious Education in 1992 and her Master of Divinity in 2005 both from Western Theological Seminary.  She was ordained as Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church of America in 2005.  Dating back to 1992, Barb has served in ministry roles at the Church of the Living Christ in Fremont and the Newaygo Congregational United Church of Christ.  In the summer of 2008, she was invited by a fledgling group of believers in Newaygo to lead them in worship activities, which soon resulted in the legal formation of the church in 2009 and the acquisition of the former First Baptist Church building in downtown Newaygo in 2010.  

Most recently, Pastor Barb assisted the church with continuity and succession planning to identify and select her replacement at Family of God.  She has now successfully transferred her ministerial duties over to the Reverend Chelsea Reynhout thus freeing herself to now join her husband, Dr. Rick Boss, as together they plan and explore what their shared ministry will look like in “retirement.”
 Please join us in thanking Pastor Barb for helping us understand what it means to be, in her words: “Jesus-with-skin-on!”

Dale Painter      ​

---