The Richmond Outreach Center will hire an interim pastor to handle its Saturday services as it looks for two spiritual leaders to replace former senior pastor Geronimo Aguilar and three other pastors who recently resigned.
The South Richmond megachurch's board of directors said Thursday that it will conduct the search for a senior and executive pastor with the help of consultants. The search will take between six months to a year, the board said.
"We're looking for the person who God wants," a church spokesperson said Thursday.
The senior pastor will handle pastoral duties at the church and the executive pastor will look over the administrative side of the operation, which includes a series of nonprofit organizations and ministries, according to the spokesperson.
Aguilar, as president and founder of the ROC, oversaw the secular and administrative operations and was the spiritual leader until shortly before he stepped down.
In May, he sent a letter to church staff saying that the church was reorganizing its operations, shifting the responsibility for running the business side of the church to an executive team.
The church has not decided yet whether the executive committee will continue when the new pastors are hired, the spokesperson said.
Aguilar, who is facing life in prison in Texas on charges that he sexually assaulted an 11-year old girl and her sister for more than a year in the late 1990s, left the church this month shortly after being arrested.
Aguilar's brother, Matthew Aguilar, along with Andrew Delgado and Jason Helmlinger, quit at the same time.
The church hopes to hire the interim pastor soon, the spokesperson said.
