MISSIONER (Church Planter in Residence)
POSITION DESCRIPTION
Supervisor: Dan Claire, Rector of the Church of the Resurrection
Hours: Full-time (Compensation is salaried and benefits are available)
Duration: This is a 3 year position from the effective start date, preferably
September 1, 2016.
Contact: Please submit resume, cover letter, and clergy application to jobs@rezchurch.org.
General Description
The Church of the Resurrection is a Gospel-centered Anglican church family serving the city
of Washington, DC. We seek God’s renewal of ourselves, our city and our world through our
common mission: to love God and serve our city as a growing community of disciples.
Resurrection’s missioner position is a three-year clergy residency providing practical training
and mentorship within an active, missional, urban church setting for future church planters.
Participants will receive a realistic experience of ministry in a church planting church while
preparing to plant a church in the Anglican Church in North America. The exact structure of
the missioner program will differ according to the missioner’s experience level and interests,
as well as the needs of Resurrection during the missioner’s residency. The missioner will be a
member of the clergy and staff teams, as well as the Parish Council. He will have regular
leading, preaching, teaching, and pastoral counseling duties.
Qualifications
The ideal applicant:
• Loves God, has a robust devotional life, takes prayer seriously, and has a heart for
worship, including worship in the Prayer Book tradition.
• Loves God’s Word, studies it carefully, and is comfortable both preaching and teaching.
• Loves God’s people, and is interested in parish ministry and church-planting in an urban
context.
• Loves unreached, disconnected and marginalized people, having a heart for evangelism
and mission.
• Has earned a graduate theological degree (by September 1, 2016) and is a mature
theologian whose doctrine is consistent with that described in the Articles of Religion and
the Jerusalem Declaration.
• Has skill and a strong interest in discipleship beyond Sunday services.
• Is a warm, hospitable, flexible, loyal, people-person.
• Is a confident self-starter who can work fairly independently.
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If married, has a wife eager to engage the women of the church; if single, has a high view
of women and conducts himself in relationships with wisdom and integrity.
Is an ordained Anglican minister, or is imminently ordainable in our diocese.
Is able to raise $12,000 external funding per year.
POSITION DESCRIPTION (continued)
General Roles and Responsibilities
Leadership
• Consistently and regularly study the Scriptures and devote time to prayer
and worship.
• Participate in weekly church staff meetings and the semi-annual staff
retreats.
• Actively participate as a member of the church’s Parish Council, including
attending meetings, retreats, and serving on committees.
• Participate in and help lead at regular events in the life of the church,
including weekend and weeknight events. e.g. Newcomer’s Dinners,
membership classes, small group leaders’ training.
• Lead the community group (Rez Group) ministry.
• Oversee the support system for volunteer ministry leaders within the church.
This will include helping leaders to align their ministries with the church’s
mission and vision, providing pastoral support and discipleship, recruiting
new leaders and assisting with leader transitions.
• Additional responsibilities as assigned by the Rector.
Congregational worship
• Preach and lead worship as assigned, in regular rotation with other clergy,
including on retreats, holidays, weddings, and funerals. This may also
include occasional responsibilities at Resurrection’s sister churches and
church plants. Responsibilities will vary depending on ordination status and
experience.
Discipleship, Evangelism, Community and Pastoral Care
• Provide general pastoral counseling to church members & regular attenders.
• Intentionally meet one-on-one with men at the church in discipling
relationships.
• Oversee community group ministry and coordination.
• Lead one morning prayer and one evening prayer service at RezHouse
weekly.
• Seek to make your home a place of hospitality to church members, regular
attenders and those on the margins.
Broader Church Duties
• Attend diocesan and denominational conferences and meetings as directed
by the Rector.
• Develop relationships with local clergy from other evangelical traditions.
PHILOSOPHY OF MINISTRY & DISTINCTIVES
Faith
• We are committed to an understanding of the gospel that brings God’s renewal of all
things, including personal, societal, and cultural, as well as creation itself, through Jesus
Christ, the risen king.
• We adopt a “mere Christianity” approach to our faith, giving priority to the essential
beliefs and practices that unite all Christians.
• As Anglicans, we place special emphasis on the reading and study of God’s Word. The
Bible shapes our imagination, worship, values, practices and common life. We place a
high value on expository preaching.
• We love to see God at work in people and institutions. While we have modest expectations
of our own abilities, we have enormous expectations for what the Lord will do.
Mission
• We believe that church plants should grow out of a sustained missional presence in a
community, and so we prioritize church plants in places where 1) there is a need for
orthodox liturgical churches, 2) a critical mass of people who are already bearing fruit, 3) a
passion to reach the lost and 4) a viable opportunity for a church like ours to thrive.
• We would rather plant ten churches of 300 people than one church of 3000, because the
limitations and opportunities presented by an urban ministry context demand flexible
churches that can adapt to the varied characteristics of each neighborhood served.
• We favor organic, spiritual entrepreneurism over programmatic growth.
• We celebrate the unique spiritual heritage of Christians in the Global South
Community
• We plant churches that are programmatically simple, minimizing bureaucracy.
• We plant churches that are community-oriented, embracing the truth that healthy
churches are inherently inefficient, because relationships are inefficient
• We prioritize hiring equippers, avoiding the “professionalization” of ministry, and
empowering our people to fully utilize their gifts to build up the Body of Christ.
• We place a high value on hospitality
Worship
• We strive to balance rootedness and relevance, engaging contemporary culture through a
historically-informed worship and perspective.
• We are liturgical, practicing holistic Christian formation that involves the head, the heart,
and the body, emphasizing imagination as well as information, and producing disciples
with gospel-shaped desires.
• We don’t practice liturgical worship in order to be highbrow. Rather, we believe that
liturgy is a form of hospitality, enabling people from all walks of life to participate together
in worship. We also believe that liturgy is a valuable and important tool for discipleship, as
what we say together each week shapes what we believe and do as Christians.
MINISTERIAL APPLICATION
Please submit with a resume (or CV), cover letter, and two sermon or teaching audio files to jobs@rezchurch.org.
APPLICANT INFORMATION
In addition to providing your resume or CV, please list:
1. Full name
2. Family information. (Your spouse’s name, if married; any children, including ages).
3. Postal address
4. Telephone number
5. Current employer
6. Five references able to give an objective evaluation of your character, pastoral competencies, and
family life, including at least one recent supervisor, two laypersons, and a recent coworker.
QUESTIONS
Please be concise and courageous in answering the following questions (in a separate document):
1. Briefly narrate your spiritual autobiography. Make sure to describe: how you came to know the Lord
Jesus Christ, your baptism, and significant encounters or experiences with the Lord. If you have ever
been disciplined or dismissed from a Christian congregation or denomination, please explain.
2. Briefly describe your current spiritual life. Include your practice of public worship and other spiritual
disciplines. What factors are important for your ongoing growth in Christ?
3. Briefly describe your sense of calling, particularly as it relates to ordained ministry. How have
previous ministry positions and others affirmed your sense of calling? Do you believe that you’re wired
for a particular pastoral role (e.g. church planting, revitalization, senior pastor, etc.)?
4. Please list and describe your previous pastoral and leadership experience. Briefly describe your own
philosophy of ministry as a pastor.
5. Are you currently ordained? If so, in what tradition? If you are not already ordained in the Anglican
Communion, are you willing? Please describe your experiences serving under spiritual authority in the
past. Have you ever been denied or removed from an ordination or credentialing process with another
Christian congregation or denomination? If so, then please explain.
6. In your opinion, what are the benefits of worship in the Prayer Book tradition? What concerns do
you have? How do you feel about vestments in worship? Should infants be baptized or dedicated?
Should children be allowed to receive communion?
7. Carefully read the 2008 Jerusalem Declaration (at fca.net). List and explain any reservations or
exceptions you may have with this document or the standards it explicitly references.
8. If you are married, please have your spouse respond to the following questions: Do you agree and
support your spouse’s sense of calling to ordained ministry? Are you of one mind and heart regarding
your spouse’s choice of our particular Christian tradition? (i.e. Anglican Christianity?) How have you
prospered from your spouse’s ministry? If you have children, how have your children prospered from
your spouse’s ministry?