Is there a resource about "samples of departments- and job descriptions in the church"?

Tes
Tes Member Posts: 4,035 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum
My logos bible software user friend of mine has asked me,if there is a resource that provides  a complete sample description of the vision and
mission statements, objectives, strategies and goals for different church departments (ministry committees.teams) of a church, and job descriptions for the persons who serve there.
for
example prayer group, cell groups, choir, greeters, ushers, deacons,
elders, sound tech, video tech, family, children, youth, care,
benevolence, evangelism, etc. If there isn't any such resource ,can some one help otherwise?



Blessings in Christ.

Comments

  • One option is searching your Logos library for:

    church NEAR (organization, department, description)

    image

    Keep Smiling [:)]

  • Tes
    Tes Member Posts: 4,035 ✭✭✭

    Thank you Keep Smiling ,I couldn't find here, I eagerly expect to see some contributions.

    Blessings in Christ.

  • Pedro
    Pedro Member Posts: 155 ✭✭

    Tes said:

    My logos bible software user friend of mine has asked me,if there is a resource that provides  a complete sample description of the vision and
    mission statements, objectives, strategies and goals for different church departments (ministry committees.teams) of a church, and job descriptions for the persons who serve there.
    for
    example prayer group, cell groups, choir, greeters, ushers, deacons,
    elders, sound tech, video tech, family, children, youth, care,
    benevolence, evangelism, etc. If there isn't any such resource ,can some one help otherwise?

    image

    Try this one Tes:

    Church Administration: Effective Leadership for Ministry

    image

  • Tes
    Tes Member Posts: 4,035 ✭✭✭

    Tes said:

    My logos bible software user friend of mine has asked me,if there is a resource that provides  a complete sample description of the vision and
    mission statements, objectives, strategies and goals for different church departments (ministry committees.teams) of a church, and job descriptions for the persons who serve there.
    for
    example prayer group, cell groups, choir, greeters, ushers, deacons,
    elders, sound tech, video tech, family, children, youth, care,
    benevolence, evangelism, etc. If there isn't any such resource ,can some one help otherwise?

    image

    Try this one Tes:

    Church Administration: Effective Leadership for Ministry

    image

    Thank you Pedro, I need more specific and detail according to my thread.

    Blessings in Christ.

  • DominicM
    DominicM Member Posts: 2,995 ✭✭✭

    Tes said:

    a complete sample description of the vision and mission statements, objectives, strategies and goals for different church departments (ministry committees.teams) of a church, and job descriptions for the persons who serve there.

    Each denomination will vary, and likely each church will interpret them differently

    There only is one mission statement that has universal validity IMO "Go and make disciples"

     

    Never Deprive Anyone of Hope.. It Might Be ALL They Have

  • Andy
    Andy Member Posts: 2,282 ✭✭✭

    Hi Tes,

    You may wish to consider Alexander Strauch's Church Leadership Series before it leaves pre-publication,

    http://www.logos.com/product/8650/alexander-strauch-church-leadership-series

    This series will not cover everything you are looking for, but Strauch does cover the roles of Elder and Deacon. Just be aware that Strauch is complementarian and advocates a Council of Elders model. Depending upon your tradition/convictions, this may or may not be of interest to you.

    In my view, this collection is very reasonably priced.

    God bless,

    Andy

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yeah, like Dominic said, it seems to me the kind of thing that each church will/should write up on their own based on their own congregation's size and needs; it will depend on their denomination's polity (organizational/ruling structure).

    Just to give you an idea of the kind of variety there could be, I found many different possible mission statements for an entire church or other organization in Nailing Down a Board: Serving Effectively on the Not-for-Profit Board:

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    I found no examples of mission statements for individual departments within a church, but that book which Pedro recommended does come close with some information that might help a church develop such statements for their purposes. I can't quote long portions of it, but here are a couple of excerpts:

    image

    image

     

    There don't seem to be many "all-in-one" books describing every aspect of a large and complex church's organization. If you are looking for information about objectives, strategies and goals for different church departments, you might not find them all in one book. You might need to look in books about Adult Education or Christian Education or Children's Ministry for such info for helping develop those statements for a particular church's Sunday School programs (adult and kids). And other books on music ministry would have info about choirs and such.

    For example, here's an excerpt from The Christian Educator's Handbook on Adult Education:

    image

     

    Some really simple answers for a few of the roles you listed:

    prayer group - this is pretty vague; it could be a prayer team that prays for the pastoral staff or to do other intercessory prayer for the needs of the church and the world, or it could be a group that meets for prayer support of each other

    cell groups - also called "small groups" in some churches; these can be anything from Bible Study groups to fellowship, sharing meals together, prayer groups (same as above), etc.

    choir - they sing, generally during the worship service, but sometimes in larger churches they also do concerts for the general public, and some even go on tours

    greeters - they greet worshippers when they come in the door, and make them feel welcome; they might hand them a bulletin and/or a name tag

    ushers - in weddings and funerals, they lead people to their seats; in normal church services, the people who collect the offering are usually called ushers; some churches also have ushers serve communion to congregants in their seats; other churches have deacons do that; depends on the size of the church

    deacons - see Bible, but denominations will vary on how or whether they use deacons

    elders - see Bible, but denominations will vary on how or whether they use elders

    sound tech/video tech - these roles might be non-existent in a small church, or they might be combined; basically assist with sound and video, projection, PowerPoint, supporting the congregation in singing and the pastor in delivering the message; could project song lyrics, Scripture, sermon notes; could do audio/video recordings of the service; could do multimedia presentations during the service; could put stuff on the web afterwards

    family/children/youth - could be combined in a small church; generally this is about Christian Formation or Education of these groups of people, in addition to fostering fellowship

    care - too generic a term for me to know what you mean? is this pastoral care?

    benevolence - again pretty vague; does this mean supporting those in (or outside) the church who have financial needs? it could mean administering a benevolence fund, or it could be offering financial counseling to people; or does it also include deciding where the church's external charitable giving goes (whether it be overseas for aid groups, etc.; or disaster relief, or food banks, etc.)

    evangelism - different churches will interpret this differently and engage in it in different ways; for some this includes supporting overseas missionaries or even sending them from within the congregation, some have teams within the church that do evangelism outreach in their own city, some offer Vacation Bible Schools for local area kids with a goal of sharing the gospel with them; there are a whole variety of ways to do this; the imagination is nearly limitless

    And of course there are all kinds of other roles in a church that you've not included: 

    hospitality (anything from volunteers setting up the coffee after the service to kitchen staff in a large church to do catering for events, etc.)

    administration (finance, human resources, secretary)

    pastoral staff

    janitorial / grounds maintenance

    parking lot attendants

    library (larger churches often have a library with volunteer or paid staff)

    arts ministry (creative people who make banners to decorate the sanctuary, do photography as needed for the church, paint during services, etc.)

    music ministry (in addition to or instead of a choir, there might be a pianist and/or organist, other instrumentalists, worship leaders for different services, different styles of music, etc.)

    I've had experience in three different churches with two different sizes and three different organizational structures:

    1) Small church (40 people or so) -- solo pastor; his wife is the church secretary and leads the children's choir and runs Vacation Bible School; there are usually about 2 elders, 2 deacons; the elders are responsible for spiritual oversight of the congregation, teaching Adult Sunday School and filling in preaching for the pastor on occasion when he has to be away; the deacons visit shut-ins and do other acts of service; the music team consists of a couple who play violin and guitar, occasionally there's a pianist as well; some of the ladies volunteer with childcare and coffee or meals when there's a special breakfast or something; there are a couple of Sunday School teachers for the different age levels of kids. The pastor lives in the house adjacent to the church property so he takes care of maintenance and grounds, etc. That's about it.

    2) Large church (6000) - pastoral staff of about 8-10; total paid church staff of about 75; two adult choirs, handbell choir, children's choir, organist, many other musicians, tons of different ministries going on in the church, probably about 30-40 elders and at least as many deacons; most of the examples I gave above of "large church" stuff come from this church I used to attend

    3) Small church (~50) - lay run congregation, no pastor, no paid staff, all volunteers, nearly everyone in the church who is able-bodied is involved in running the church in some way: moderator (chairs the congregational meetings), congregational coordinator (keeps track of membership, church directory, does the bulletins, handles the mail and phone messages), secretary (takes minutes at meetings), treasurer (handles all the church finances: budget, paying bill, offerings), another volunteer who helps count the offering, board member at large (helps with discussions and votes at board meetings), pastoral care team (3 people), speaker coordinators (2 people who schedule all the preaching, about half of which is done by people within the church and the rest is invited guest speakers), worship leader coordinator (that's me! lines up volunteers to plan and lead the worship service: we have 20 people who have volunteered in this responsibility), music coordinator (plays the piano most of the time, though we've got 2 or 3 others who know how to play and do it from time to time, and coordinates the volunteers who pick the hymns and lead the singing), ministerial association representative (that's me too, since we don't have a pastor), childhood education coordinator (currently vacant since we only have one child at the moment), youth education (vacant), nursery (vacant), children's feature coordinator (tells a children's story during the service if there are any children present), food coordinator (organizes volunteers to do setup and cleanup for our monthly potlucks and weekly coffee & cookies after the service, and special events like Easter breakfast), chapel maintenance (cleaning, tidying the chairs, setting up hymnals on all the chairs, coordinates people to bring flowers each Sunday, etc.), representative to our denomination's main service organization (currently vacant), archivist (keeps records of the history of our church, photographs, etc.), webmaster (also takes care of recording the services and putting the sermons online afterwards), social committee (3 people; gets cake for celebrations, organizes church picnic and other social events), usher coordinator (lines up people to volunteer to be ushers each Sunday; they act as greeters, hand out bulletins, and collect the offering), nominating committee (sorely needed when you've got this many volunteer slots to fill!), and we strike additional committees at other times as needed, e.g., to plan our annual church retreat

  • Tes
    Tes Member Posts: 4,035 ✭✭✭

    Blessings in Christ.