Appointment of McLean Bible Church’s Lead Pastor Under Review: The appointment of Mike Kelsey as the lead pastor of David Platt’s McLean Bible Church in Virginia is to be revised following a recent change in the church’s constitution.
The revision of the appointment of the longtime pastor of the multi-campus congregation comes more than a year after the dismissal of a lawsuit over the controversial election of new elders brought by unhappy longtime members of the church.
Kelsey’s appointment will be reviewed through church members’ votes. According to a Q&A published on the church’s website, the church opened voting on Sunday, and the congregation has now until Wednesday to vote to affirm him as the lead pastor.
They admitted that “in 2020, Mike Kelsey and Wade Burnett began serving as lead pastors alongside David but were not formally affirmed as such by the congregation.”
“Three years later, we revised our church’s constitution to include lead pastors, and this revision stipulates that lead pastors must be elected by the church membership. As soon as our constitution was revised, we removed the title of lead pastor from Mike and Wade until such time as the church would affirm them in this role,” the church explained.
Although Wade, who joined the church in March 2020, “one week before the COVID shutdown,” is qualified to serve as a lead pastor, he will not be revised at the same time as Kelsey. The decision, according to the church, is to “highlight the significance of Mike’s role and honor the significance of Mike’s leadership over 16 years in our church family.”