GOC Appoints Interim Vice President
The General Oversight Council has appointed Rev. Rodney Arnold, lead pastor of OneLife Church in Knoxville, TN, to serve as interim Vice President of the Missionary Church. Rev. Arnold will fill the role after former Vice President Jimmy Santiago became interim President last month.
Rev. Arnold has been a credentialed minister in the Missionary Church since 2009 when he planted OneLife Church in the Southeast Region and was coached by then-regional director Dan Palmer. Started in his living room, the church has since multiplied to multiple campuses across Knoxville and has planted four autonomous churches in East Tennessee while coaching and training hundreds of other church planters as the founding member of the Ignite Church Network. In 2020, OneLife Church was recognized by Outreach magazine as one of the top-100 multiplying churches in the United States.
While serving as a local pastor, Rev. Arnold has also been a trainer and speaker across the country and denomination including the Church Multiplication Training Center, Ludlow Falls Family Camp, Ignite Network, Building Bridges Network, Exponential conference, Leadership Network, Nappanee Missionary Church’s Fan the Flame conference, the Hispanic/Latino National Conference, and the SHIFT national conference. Internationally, Arnold has partnered with networks to train pastors and church planters across Latin America, including the Pastor Network Panamá and Love Serves International in the Dominican Republic. He was also elected to the General Oversight Council in 2019 and will continue to serve in that role as interim vice president.
“Rodney Arnold is no stranger to the Missionary Church,” said GOC moderator Bert Jones. “You will recognize his face from our SHIFT conferences, and he and his team hosted our virtual SHIFT conference at OneLife Church in Knoxville, TN, last year. He has been a valued member of the GOC, and I believe he will provide the right kind of leadership to the VP role that will be a great assistance to our Interim President Jimmy Santiago as well as to our denomination in this season.”
As interim president, Rev. Jimmy Santiago is looking forward to having a teammate as he leads.
“I am so pleased to have Rodney Arnold as my VP,” Santiago said. “He is a man who loves the Lord and the Church. His ability in public relations has already been a great asset to the Missionary Church during this transition.”
The Constitution of the Missionary Church empowers the GOC to appoint an interim to serve until the next general conference when there is a vacancy in the vice presidency. To do so, the GOC received nominations from the Ministry Leadership Council, regional directors, national office staff, and GOC members. The top three names were then voted on by the GOC.
“I am beyond honored to have been elected to serve in this role,” Arnold said. “In my 13 years of being connected to the Missionary Church, I have been blown away by the incredible stories coming out of our 500 churches across the country and the countless others overseas and with World Partners. I look forward to getting to know even more pastors and churches and helping tell their stories to celebrate the multiplication of disciples to the fourth generation.”
Getting to know other pastors and churches will inevitably lead to even more relationships, like it did for Nappanee Missionary Church’s Senior Pastor Dave Engbrecht.
“I’ve been so blessed to have Rodney as a friend and fellow pastor,” Engbrecht said. “I’ve admired his wisdom, courage and relational skills. He’s mission-driven and value-centered, and his heart and passion is to reach the lost while staying true to Biblical theology.”
Rev. Arnold holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and public relations from the University of Tennessee and a master’s degree in evangelism and church planting from Liberty Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Harrison, have three young children – Mariclaire, Aaron, and Charlotte – and live in Knoxville, TN. In addition to serving in leadership roles in the Missionary Church, he is also involved in his local community serving on the school board of Grace Christian Academy in Knoxville and as mascot coach for the University of Tennessee Athletics.
“I look forward to getting to know even more pastors and churches and helping tell their stories to celebrate the multiplication of disciples to the fourth generation.”
— Rodney Arnold
New Treasurer Elected
The GOC has also elected Tondra Call to serve as treasurer, a position that had previously been vacant for several years.
Tondra is a graduate of Taylor University, completing her BS in Accounting & Systems in 2001 and her Masters in 2004. After almost two decades working in the for-profit realm, divided between public accounting, corporate finance at Raytheon, and most recently serving as controller for a local company, she made the decision to take her accounting experience to the nonprofit world. In 2018, she joined the Finance Leadership group at TEAM, The Evangelical Alliance Mission, out of Wheaton, Illinois.
Tondra was an active member of Fellowship Missionary Church in Fort Wayne for 20 years and now counts Pathway Community Church as her home church. She also serves as the board treasurer for Soul Medic Media, a Fort Wayne-based nonprofit that leverages technology and innovation to engage young people in conversations about mental health and other struggles as a next step toward Christ.
