LeaderLines: The Search for Our Next Minister to Students

The search for our next Minister to Students is officially underway! The job description and qualifications have been prepared through consultation with the staff, the youth leadership team, and the Personnel Committee. We are now collecting resumes.

How can you help? First and last, you can pray. You can pray for God to quickly send us the one he has prepared for this important work. You can pray for God to prepare us for new leadership. You can pray for God to work in a powerful way during the interim time through our youth leaders, our parents, and our students.

Second, you can spread the word. Forward this information to anyone you think should consider this position. Also, forward this information to any church leader you know and ask them to think about those who might know of candidates we should consider.

Below you will find the job description, qualifications, and instructions for submitting a resume. This information can also be found on our website at:

http://hillcrestaustin.org/studentministrysearch

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Minister to Students

Job Description

Knowing that sixty-thousand children and youth live within a 5-mile radius of our facility, an organized ministry with middle school and high school students (grades 7-12) is an essential part of the work of Hillcrest Baptist Church. We need a Minister to Students (MS) with the skill, experience and training for the following:

Teaching: Our Minister to Students will teach and equip others to teach in structured settings and informal counseling opportunities. This includes identifying the subjects that need to be covered, preparing lessons, as well as recruiting, training and supervising adult volunteers for the teaching team. Teaching opportunities for the MS and his/her team currently include Sunday morning Bible study, classes in the Hillcrest Institute for youth and sometimes for parents, a midweek program, and retreats. The MS and his/her teaching team should also be prepared for those counseling opportunities that arise to encourage and advise students and their parents individually.

Activities: Our Minister to Students will lead and equip others to lead activities designed for a variety of purposes such as fellowship, missions, outreach, and family enrichment.

Administration: Our Minister to Students must have administrative competence in areas such as planning the annual program calendar, working within a budget, submitting deposits for activities, collecting permission forms, and so on. Good administration also includes effective communication of these plans with the students and their parents.

Outreach: Our Minister to Students will recruit prospective students to the discipleship of Hillcrest. This includes identifying prospective students for the program and following up on visitors to the program (including interacting with their parents, who often have an influence on the student’s participation). This also includes training and motivating active students and youth leaders to join the MS in outreach. A review of numerical growth in the MS’s program will be part of the annual review.

Music: Our Minister to Students will have the musical competence to participate in leadership with our worship music program on Sunday mornings under the direction of our Minister of Music. We believe this will send a strong signal to youth and to their parents that our Sunday morning worship service is designed with them in mind. In addition, the MS will lead (or at least supervise) the praise band for youth events.

Other Duties: Our Minister to Students will be regarded as an associate minister whose focus is on student ministry. This means that the Senior Pastor may give the MS some tasks that will not relate exclusively to youth ministry, but can benefit our overall church program.

Qualifications

We are seeking a man or woman with the following qualifications:

• Education: The candidate must have completed at least a bachelor’s degree program. Seminary training will be considered a plus.
• Experience: The candidate must have 3-5 years experience in youth ministry leadership, preferably in a Baptist church.
• Convictions: The candidate must be in agreement with The Baptist Faith and Message 2000, which can be reviewed at the “What We Believe” section of our website (www.HillcrestAustin.org).
• Chemistry: The candidate must demonstrate experience at working well with others. He or she will be leading a team of lay leaders in the student ministry, as well as coordinating with the Minister of Music in worship planning, with the Minister of Education in Sunday School planning, and with the Children’s Ministry Leader in the work of Club 56 (our ministry to fifth- and sixth-graders).

To apply for this position, please send a resume as an email attachment to Pastor Tom Goodman at tom@hbcaustin.org. For more information on Hillcrest Baptist Church, check out our website at www.HillcrestAustin.org.