The NCD is excited to welcome Sean McDowell to the team. He will begin serving on the team February 1 as the Director of Church Planting and Leadership Development. 

Sean grew up in the EFCA and was ordained in the EFCA, holds a Master’s from Wheaton College Graduate School, and a Bachelor’s from Trinity International University. Sean previously served on the pastoral staff of Constance Free Church for 30 years. He filled a wide range of roles there, serving students, families, young adults, guests, outreach ministries, executive pastor, and teaching pastor. 

Sean and his wife, Heidi, live in Andover with their two children. They remain committed to Constance Free Church, where Heidi also serves as the Communications and Connections  Director. 

Over the last 3 years, Sean has served as Director of the Church Evangelism Institute at the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center. In that role, Sean mobilized hundreds of pastors and churches toward greater gospel impact across a wide range of contexts and demographics, including rural, urban, and suburban settings.  

Over the past year, Sean sensed the Lord redirecting his heart more specifically toward our North Central District family to help start and strengthen churches and advance the gospel throughout Minnesota. He will begin his ministry with the NCD on February 1 in a part time capacity while he finishes out his responsibilities at Wheaton College to help with the leadership transition there. Then, in June, Sean will transition to a full-time commitment with the NCD as he succeeds Dan Moose in this role. Dan will be retiring this summer after fruitfully serving our NCD family for 25 years.

Sean’s responsibilities with the NCD will include the following: 

• Identifying, equipping, training, and empowering NCD church planting centers, leaders, and planters 

• Overseeing pastoral search ministry, serving congregational search teams and managing our use of EFCA Pastor Search 

• Finding, recruiting, and placing potential pastors and vocational church leaders 

• Equipping and motivating pastors and congregations in evangelism 

• Serving on our District Directional Team as part of the NCD staff 

Sean is raising support for the church planting portion of his role. You can learn more and join his support team here.

Please join us in warmly welcoming Sean to our NCD staff. You may send him a word of encouragement at sean.mcdowell@ncdefca.org. Or better yet, reach out to begin a conversation about how your congregation might engage in planting churches and identifying and developing the next generation of pastors and leaders.