The Weyburn Free Methodist Church is saying goodbye to their Lead Pastor of nearly twelve years.

The Reverend Doctor Jay Mowchenko has been the Lead Pastor of WFMC since May 2006.

Dr Mowchenko's wife, Marilou and two children, Keisha and Josh have been active members of Weyburn since they moved here.

Jay said he has not been fired but this is a personal decision.

"I believe that existing churches no matter how good they are, each has a limited reach socially, size, culture, certainly in their style and approach to ministry. Each existing church appeals to a slice of the community and will inevitably have trouble reaching beyond that slice," explains Dr. Jay.

"My whole ministry life has been seeking to expand that reach or step outside the reach to reach new people."

In the year 2000, Jay and Marilou started a new church for the Free Methodist Church in Canada, in Oshawa, Ontario.

"We wanted to try a new approach to church so we could reach a whole new slice of people which we did."

"I'm in the ministry to take the good news about this amazing Jesus to absolutely everyone."

Jay said that he originally came to Weyburn in 2006 to spend time in a healthy, resilient, relevant, multi-generational church to see the other end of the process.

"We chose Weyburn Free Methodist because they have a history of being all those things."

"I felt I could contribute making it even stronger."

"After almost twelve years here I feel we have learned a lot from these people and we've helped contribute to making the church even more of these things, healthy resilient relevant and even more strongly multi-generational."

"Pastor Jody tells me there are somewhere around 40 kids under the age of three."

Jay said he is leaving because he feels called to consider planting another church and feels he has done all that he needed to do including equipping people to lead, strengthen the ministry and governance structure of the church, teach and preach truth that has inspired practical change and led the charge of intentional ministry in the community.

"Part of Jesus approach to leadership is to build something good and then hand it over and get out of the way, I felt the nudge from God saying that this is probably the time to do that."

Jay added that this 'nudge' coincides with changes in the home.

Keisha and Josh have now both left home to continue studies. Josh, is at the University of Saskatchewan. Keisha is at Surrey University in England.

Jay finished his Doctor of Ministry in Leadership this year.

"The desire to plant a church, the feeling of completion and the change in our lives are all intertwined and I'm not sure really what came first."

Jay has been involved in the Housing Shelter planning which was previously reported on earlier in the year.

"That's still very much in development and in the next few weeks, there are key decisions that will be made by some of our partners to tell us whether this will be able to go ahead or not. If those decisions go the way I hope they do, we will have something running before I'm leaving May 1st."

"The housing shelter need is not going away."

"Something will emerge from this whether I'm involved in it or not."

As Chaplain for the Weyburn Police Service, Jay has been a support to the police officers and in order to keep the support in place, Jay has been talking with Chief Marlo Pritchard to build a chaplaincy team.

"It's important that we have both male and female chaplains and that we have a lot of people that are available."

The Free Methodist Church building has been going through major renovations in recent years and three out of the five stages have been completed.

"We also made some significant changes in how we run and staff our church and in fact, those changes won't take place fully until I'm out of the way."

Jay doesn't have his plans finalized in what he is going to do next.

"We're looking at business opportunities, I have been coaching pastors and church plants for the Free Methodist Church in Canada and that is going to expand in the new year."

Jay said that if he starts a new church plant, he will be moving away.

"The last thing I want to do is get in the way of or compete with the good work that Weyburn Free Methodist Church is doing."

Jay reflected on the highlights and challenges of his time in Weyburn.

He said baptisms and praying for people are his favourite things he has taken part in during his tenure as well as working with the board and staff.

The main challenge for Jay has been to see complete unity in the church.

"The ongoing big challenge of leadership in the church is getting clear and unified in a direction. Over the last twelve years, we have had several significant conversations with people that wanted different things out of who we were as a church. That just seems to come up on a regular basis. We need to keep talking about who are we, what are we about, how do we operate and what are we trying to accomplish"

Jay said they have had some bumpy conversations in the past and some people have chosen to leave the congregation and they have tried to bless them as they go.

"We've had other people who have had disagreements and they have chosen to stay, that has been wonderful."

"Non-violent leadership is something I see in Jesus."

Jay said he has worked hard to build structures to build patterns and be a person that doesn't have to force anyone to act or do anything they do not want to do.

"We see bullies all over the place in leadership and in our world and I think that Jesus' non-violent approach to leadership is a powerful antidote to that."

The Mowchenko's are grateful for Weyburn

"Weyburn has been amazing for us to have space for us to raise our children. Their school experience has been phenomenal. they've made great friends here and one of the things that make it difficult to contemplate moving away from Weyburn is that this is our children's home. This city has embraced us. we love living here we love the people here."

"This is a safe place, it's a safe community, it's a great place to raise our children and just want to say thank you to this community, everyone in this community whether I have met them or not, they've made Weyburn a great place to live and to grow and to raise our children."