The resignation of our part-time music director jarred us into reality. “We need a full-time worship person,” our pastor concluded, “but where do we start looking?”
Our Human Resources committee identified two challenges: finding compatible candidates, and advertising where they would be likely to look.
Every church has uniquenesses that make finding a compatible candidate both necessary and difficult. Our church, for example, belongs to the Dutch Reformed tradition. We follow the liturgical calendar and value elements of traditional worship. Yet our services are also informal, contemporary, even charismatic at times. Like many churches, we are a blend that can’t be easily categorized.
In Atlanta, far from our denominational center in Michigan’s Dutch country, we felt the pool of prospects drawn to our lifestyle and worship format would be small.
The second challenge, where to advertise, pushed us toward a creative solution.
“What about the Internet?” asked Barbara, a member of our committee who had marketing experience on the ‘Net.” It should be more cost efficient and give us broader exposure than traditional media.” The suggestion appealed to us. So we delegated follow-up assignments. I would contact some large churches in the area for recommendations. Our pastor would contact the denomination. We’d ask the congregation to spread the news of our search. And Barbara would check out the Internet.
Every other assignment brought only marginal results, but Barbara found exactly what we had prayed for—a resource that would help us find someone with the eclectic qualifications we needed.
Launching the search
We explored Web sites that posted resumés, but the number of unsorted resumés was overwhelming. The best and most direct strategy, we concluded, was to design and post our own ad.The actual steps of submitting a job posting are simple; the real work was defining the position and articulating the church’s job expectations.
1. Define the position. Our pastor was the first to ask if we were looking for more than a minister of music. “Besides our adult choir and worship team, we have people gifted in drama, kids who love to sing and dance, and teenagers begging to be involved in worship. I’d like to see us get someone who has a background in more than just music.”
What we needed, we concluded, was someone multi-faceted. An organizer. An entrepreneur with not only a music background, but drama and dance experience, with a passion for motivating and training laypeople to minister through all the arts.
We were surprised at how significantly the job description shifted. The original title, Minister of Music, no longer fit. We changed it to Minister of Worship and the Arts—an important move that clarified the scope of the job for ourselves and for potential candidates.
2. Design the ad. “How do we communicate who we are to someone we have never met?” It was an important question. Since I had PR experience, the committee decided I should draft the ad.
From reading the ads others placed on the ‘Net, I learned that each one conveyed a tone or attitude that was just as revealing as its given facts. Some sounded sophisticated. Some cold. Some homey. And others hokey. I began with a synopsis of the job description, and then reshaped the ad choosing words and style that would express the warmth, excitement, and potential of our small congregation.
3. Open a mailbox. To protect the confidentiality of our applicants, we established a separate e-mail address for incoming resumés. Most major servers (e.g. AOL, Earthlink, Mindspring) offer up to four e-mail addresses on an account with no additional charge. We made sure our mailbox was up and running before submitting advertising just in case we ran into a glitch.
4. Post the ad to Web sites. After deciding we would post our ad for four weeks on three sites, we simply logged onto the sites, chose the “add a job posting” option, completed the form on the screen, and used the church credit card for payment. To avoid burdening our small administrative staff, we chose not to include the church phone number in the ad.
Then, as had been our practice from the beginning, we prayed! Within a week, the resumés began to flow in.
We got hits!
Our ad for a Minister of Worship and the Arts drew more than thirty applicants from all over the world. After a month, the committee began conducting interviews with the top candidates and ultimately decided on someone from out-of-state.The number and quality of resumés we received from our Internet posting gave us benchmarks, and it helped us refine our qualifications so we would be ready when the right person came along. Since then, we have used the Internet several times to advertise for other staff positions and have been pleased with the results.
Karen Moderow is communications coordinator for the steering committee at North Atlanta Community Church, Roswell, Georgia.karji@mindspring.com
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