You may or may not know that our church is currently looking for a second full time worker. If you are interested, you can read the full advert here. It is fair to say, the advert somewhat divided opinion.

In part, that was because we are not particularly concerned about specific job titles. Nor, indeed, are we very concerned about narrowing down exactly what the person is going to do. We have always taken a principle of expecting people to look at what is currently going on – both in the church and more widely in the town – and ask themselves how they are going to quantitively and/or qualitatively add to the existing work. It has long been our belief that people will be far more engaged with what they are excited to be doing than what we have told them they must do.

Someone recently asked me, given this broad view, what actually prompted us to create a position? The answer to that is simple: the need. The need both in the town and in the church. We need people who will reach the lost and disciple the saved. We are quite open on the question of means of doing that, but there are 240,000 people in our borough and not a right lot of gospel ministry. Within our church, there are many people from unchurched backgrounds – and we have ongoing contact with many unbelievers – all of whom need someone to share the gospel with them and, if they know him, build them up in the Lord Jesus. We need more people capable of doing this work.

I say without any pride, I think our church punches well above its weight in terms of evangelistic and discipleship output. But with such output comes few available hands. If much of our time is spent running English Classes, Food Clubs and activities to engage families to reach the lost, and others of us have our hands full of preaching, teaching home groups and leading theology studies – and a significant proportion of our small membership are new believers unable to do much of this at present and the very people benefiting from their being run – it means we need people available to engage in the soft, but vital, elements of ministry. We need more people available to meet one-to-one with believers. We need people available to meet up for coffee and be able to speak the gospel credibly into people’s lives. We need people available to visit with people, hear what is going on with them and speak words of life into their situations. This is the normal work of pastoral ministry, it just isn’t necessarily what many people associate as the main work of being a pastor.

So, our advert is purposefully broad. We are not delineating tasks and outlining spaces that need filling in ministry already going on. Truth be told, the things we are doing are already happening and are manned. And if they weren’t being manned, we would stop doing them unless and until someone showed up who felt they wanted to run it again and had the capacity to do so. We are not wedded to means except the specific ones Jesus demands in scripture, and those particular means are well covered. What we need is people with an eye to doing whatever is needed for the cause of the gospel. We need people who are self-starters, able to create new ministry opportunities and manage them well so that the work can grow. We need people who like the idea of being given freedom and flexibility to make the most of the opportunities on our doorstep.

Maybe that sounds like something you would like to do. Maybe that sounds like an environment that you would enjoy. If so, maybe you can get in touch with us.