Worship & Adult Ministry Pastor

For the past 35 years, COMMUNITY has been passionately committed to the Jesus mission of helping people find their way back to God. This singular focus has not changed...nor will it. As we navigate new challenges in our world and culture, we believe new opportunities have emerged for us to mobilize more Christ followers and expand our current ministry model to help even more people find their way back to God. We are One Church with Four Expressions reaching people who are far from God: COMMUNITY Online, COMMUNITY Freedom (based in local prisons), 3C COMMUNITIES (Micro Churches) and seven physical COMMUNITY locations.

COMMUNITY'S Lincoln Park location is one of our seven physical locations presently meeting in the familiar and iconic Victory Garden Theater. Tell just about anyone in Lincoln Park where COMMUNITY meets on a Sunday and they will know it. Presently reaching about 150 adult attenders with the majority participating in one of a dozen small groups makes for one of our most connected locations.

Lincoln Park is one of 178 distinct neighborhoods in the city of Chicago where you can spend a day at the beach, walk home through a zoo, and end the night at an upscale restaurant or local pub. Lincoln Park’s unique location in the city allows for amazing outdoor living just a short distance from the hustle of downtown.

Home to about 66,000 residents it is the perfect place for people looking for all the benefits of urban living alongside large parks and open areas. DePaul University is located in the neighborhood, mixing the upscale with a traditional college atmosphere.

Located two miles north of downtown, Lincoln Park borders Old Town, River North, and Gold Coast to the south, Bucktown to the west, and Lakeview and North Center to the north. Lake Michigan beaches take up the eastern border of the neighborhood and are a perfect place to spend a summer day. Lincoln Park has a walkability score of 94 and a bike score of 88, making it the 6th most walkable neighborhood in Chicago.

This is an exciting time to join an established and larger team committed to the success of our location in Lincoln Park and to see the Jesus Mission move forward throughout Chicagoland. We'd love for you to consider joining our team and if you're interested in learning more, please read on and submit your resume.

Ministry Role

The Lincoln Park Worship Pastor is a person with a teaching, shepherding & church planting mindset that enjoys engaging in the congregation & community and seeks to develop relationships with people both inside and outside the church. The person in this role enjoys working on a team and sees themselves as a key leader in the church and a significant support for the location pastor. Expectations and responsibilities go beyond just “worship” for our growing Lincoln Park location.

Purpose: The worship pastor at COMMUNITY in Lincoln Park will oversee all adult artists and associated service experiences leading in these five areas:

Authentic Pastor: Ultimately worship is pastoral work, where Jesus entrusts you with His followers so you can lead them back to Him. You must not only love God’s people, you must also love God and His Word and know how to bless and lead His people.
• Lead and meet with artists regularly ensuring their care and discipleship.
• Serve as a pastor for the church, serving the church as needed.
• Oversee a team of volunteer leaders to ensure artists are cared for and thriving.

System Orchestrator: A visionary leader, who also serves as an organizational leader who understands that right-brained creativity will never become reality without left-brained systems. We don’t expect you to do it all, but we do expect you to know how it all fits together.
• Schedule and equip artists, and maintain Planning Center service flows for Adult weekly celebration services.
• Ensure artists are equipped with resources needed to serve effectively.
• Beyond the Arts, there is much to orchestrate with a growing location and this is an expectation for all staff in Lincoln Park. Work alongside the COMMUNITY Pastor to create systems and processes for first time attenders, to small group sign-ups and more.

Artistic Recruiter: Artists dance to a different tune, and you need to be the “Pied Piper” to recruit them onto our team. You must also be able to maintain the critical balance between excellence and inclusion, knowing how to develop others and when they’re ready to be put on the platform.
• Building on the foundation of established artists and culture, the Worship Pastor will recruit and develop new artists regularly.
• The Worship Pastor must have a passion for teaching and equipping new artists to live out their giftings on our team.
• Create an artist pipeline for development and engagement from Weds. StuCo to Sunday AM.

Collaborative Producer: You’ll have to be connected to the programming sheet to make things run, but to the Spirit to keep things real through an authentic expression of worship. You don’t have to be the most creative person in the room, but you need to be energized by both a collaborative and creative process.
• Lead the teams’ execution of weekly services ensuring powerful worship, smooth production, and creative excellence.
• Collaborate weekly with the Location Pastor to take the message content out to our community via social media and other creative mediums as determined by the team.*

Technical Facilitator: You may not know how all the technical equipment works, but you’ll need to develop a team member that does. You need a musical ear, an artistic eye, and a cool-enough head to improvise when the worst-case scenario occurs just before the start of the service.
• Oversee the technical team including sound, media and future roles of producer and lighting techs.
• Have basic understanding of all technical systems and processes and be able to lead and teach as needed.

Reporting Structure
• The Lincoln Park Worship Pastor submits to the staff leadership team (Lead Team) and the Lincoln Park COMMUNITY Pastor.

Work Hours

The Lincoln Park Worship Pastor is a full time role with benefits. This role has some remote work hour flexibility. Primary in person working hours being Sunday mornings, Tuesday & Wednesday team office day, and Thursday evening rehearsal.

Qualifications / Skills
• Commitment to COMMUNITY's philosophy of ministry and mission of helping people find their way back to God
• Excellence with project management and written communication
• Strong ability for strategic thinking
• Leadership experience with a team-building track record
• Vision for worship adaptable to our context
• Personality who can both work with and lead other strong personalities
• A programming generalist with a cultural-creative bent
• Understanding of the creative arts and technology
• Excellent or above average voice
• Experience with Planning Center

Meets leadership expectations found in the COMMUNITY Staff Handbook

The Worship Pastor is a…

Humble Worshiper: You must have more than musical skill or leadership ability. You must first and foremost be a worshiper in awe of God’s majesty and broken by your own sin.

Spiritual Leader: You must not only have the spiritual gifting to lead, but also the spiritual wisdom to equip others to lead as well. You must understand that at its heart leadership is not control, it is influence.

Creative Director: To be our Worship Pastor, you must have the ability to keep your eyes on the details while seeing the big picture. You would be our CEO of creativity, leading the team dreaming up 52 services a year.

Musical Multiplier: You must have the capacity to be both a musical leader on stage and off. You must be looking for and gathering other leaders and volunteers around you. You may love the spotlight, but you love shining it on others even more.

Job Responsibilities
• Monthly schedule artists and tech team for Sunday morning
• Meet 1-1 with coaches and leaders
• Practice and rehearse for Sunday
• Attend weekly Lincoln Park staff meetings
• Attend monthly all staff and worship arts meeting
• 1-1 with Community Pastor

Jesus Mission

Reaching People Who are Far From God:
• When these things happen in my role and on the teams I lead, these move the Jesus Mission forward. List your benchmarks that help reach people who are far from God.

Reproducing the Mission in Others:
• When these things happen in my role and on the teams I lead, these move the Jesus Mission forward. List the benchmarks that help reproduce the mission in others.

Restoring God’s Dream for the World:
• When these things happen in my role and on the teams I lead, these move the Jesus Mission forward. List the benchmarks that help restore God’s dream for the world.

This pastoral role is commissioned by COMMUNITY's Leadership Commission (aka the elders or Board of Directors). The person fulfilling this role is considered to be a religious leader by the church and qualifies under the "ministerial exception" of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The duties of this role include administering sacraments and conducting religious worship. The person fulfilling this role has management responsibility overseeing coaches and leaders and overseeing a ministry budget within the church.

Apply Job!