Job Description
The Associate Pastor will play an invaluable role at our church. He will facilitate the spiritual health of the church by enlisting, guiding, and equipping the Family Ministry. Also, he will focus our church’s outreach efforts by mobilizing our commitment to share the gospel locally, regionally, and internationally. Overall, his impact will be felt in the internal strength of the church and its expanded external gospel witness. The primary areas of responsibilities will be:
Family
- Teach a Sunday school class for young families.
- Shepherd parents to fulfill the characteristics of their respective roles within the family and teach them Christian methods of guiding anddiscipling their children through the different phases of childhood leading into adulthood.
- Organize quarterly equipping workshops/conferences for families to discuss important topics (ex. family devotions, technology and social media, apologetic questions).
- Organize occasional parents’ night out activities with date suggestions.
- Utilize Faith@Home resources for church families.
- Explore greater ministry to families of children with special needs.
Outreach
- Lead the Outreach Serve Team by brainstorming, planning, and boosting outreach interest. Coordinate a regular meeting to plan outreaches.
- Explore possible ways that Serve Teams can be utilized for outreach.
- Work with the pastoral staff and Outreach Team to plan:
1) Local and international mission trips.
2) Monthly outreach projects that offer a variety of ways to share the gospel and meet practical needs in the community. Such projects will involve working with existing missions partnerships (Light House, Wellspring Life Ministry) and developing new ones.
- Organize various events to attract the community such as marriage and parenting conferences and the Alpha course.
- Ensure that relevant church events are promoted to the community via website and social media.
- Provide 2 church-wide evangelism and/or apologetic training seminars a year. Possible training topics include: How to 1) begin gospel conversations 2) engage in effective, gospel-centered servant evangelism, and 3) handle objections to the faith. Participants will seek to implement their learning with hands-on training, both in the seminar and the church’s evangelism efforts in the community.
- Expand involvement with church planting by partnering with planters and updating our church about them.
- Facilitate Disaster Relief efforts by promoting our church involvement and hosting training events.
- Update church prospects and ensure that they are aware of church events and ministries.
- Cultivate relationships with local collegiate campus ministries and explore how we can impact this important generation.
- Lead a team of counselors to be available after service to discuss the gospel and spiritual matters. Each counselor will be equipped to share the gospel and pray for concerns.
Teacher Training
- 1 or 2 times a year meet with Sunday school and Bible study teachers for the purpose of training, fellowship, encouragement, and self-assessment of their classes.
- Encourage them to read a helpful book together and/or watch some training videos.
Additional
- Preach at least 2 times a year.
- Occasional pastoral duties as needed: weddings, baptisms, funerals, interviewing new church members, and administering the Lord’s Supper.
- Visitation of church members in need.
Competitive salary commensurate with experience. Full benefits.
Conclusion
As you look over the job description, it should be clarified that working with the Family Ministry will be a large responsibility. This area may not cover as many “bullet points” as Outreach, but the Family Ministry will be extensive.
Also, Outreach must be a major focus of our church for several reasons. First, our culture is increasingly becoming post-Christian. People do not look to Christianity as the source of truth and hope as did previous generations. Researchers note how our denomination has lost over 1.3 million members in the last 3 years alone [https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/sbc-membership-declining/]. We cannot sit and wait for people to come to the church. We must be equipped and mobilized to reach our community. Jesus told us to “go and make disciples.” Second, in 2021 the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware carried out a Church Health Assessment of our church and found that evangelism was our biggest weakness among 7 categories that included discipleship, fellowship, mission/ministry, worship, leadership, and stewardship. While the weakness of evangelism is common among churches, it needs to be addressed, especially given our changing cultural condition. Our church recently refinanced its building loan with the purposes of freeing up monies for outreach. We have the opportunity and resources to spread the gospel in Annapolis and beyond, both our neighbors and the nations! Let us be faithful to the Great Commission.