A Great Example Job Description for a (Rockstar) Internet Campus Pastor
Here’s a great example of a job description for an “Internet Campus Pastor.” Edit and change as needed.
I thought it was a good one, but this particular person would be a “dream” candidate. Most pastors aren’t technical experts and vice versa, and this job req has a lot of it. This particular candidate “aint no slacker.”
And if you find one of these, please let me know…
Check out the example job description after the jump…
Job Title: Internet Campus Pastor and Web Manager
Reports To: Communications Director / Executive Pastor
Position Summary: Lead and develop the internet presence of _____________________ Church, which includes information, resources, the online community, and building/establishing an internet campus. The role is a leadership position as both a pastor and a technical expert. It will involved building a team of staff and volunteers to perform these essential functions.
Essential Functions
Online Community Development and Pastoral Leadership:
- Research, establish, lead, and support an internet campus. The model should include service elements each week, logistical support for internet campus volunteers, follow-up on campus visitors, and working with third party service providers.
- Setting up online small groups and teams for community building, online and physical events.
- Maximize web strategy and resources to connect people to Christ and the community.
Design and Develop:
- This role will be interfacing closely with communications, graphics, and video production teams.
- Oversee the design and development of the church’s web site(s), ensuring a consistent brand and messaging.
- Ensure the site(s) are effective in providing information, resources and community to the public and the church, furthering the Church initiatives and strategies.
- Design and implement the information architecture of the church’s web site ensuring ease of navigation for visitors.
Content Management:
- This role will be interfacing closely with the communications team.
- With the Communications Director you will lead the planning and implementation of web content and design for the church’s web sites.
- Work with staff and volunteers to develop and maintain the most updated information for the sites.
- Continually develop and maintain the church’s SEO ranking for the best ranking in Google searches and organic returns.
- Maintain and develop any internal content needs.
Technical Administration:
- This role will be interfacing closely with the IT department and managers.
- Monitor the site(s) performance and make necessary adjustment to ensure maximum availability and performance including web site capacity planning.
- Perform technology needs assessments, research and evaluate new technology to determine whether it could be beneficial for the church.
- Maintain synchronization of production and development web server.
Strategic Planning and Development:
- Lead the development and implementation of a strategic plan for the church’s web presence.
- Develop functional specifications for web related projects. Manage RFP process, vendor selection and management for these projects.
- Ensure that the site’s content and online communities are developed and supported according to the church’s strategic initiatives.
Requirements
Education:
- Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience.
Experience:
- Web development experience – 2-5 years, preferably with experience building websites.
- Leadership and management – Built and managed teams of five or more.
- Ministry – Spiritual leadership roles.
- Social Networking – Has an established internet community and utilizes web resources well.
Skills:
- Technical – Working knowledge of Photoshop and Adobe products, Google Apps, Web Design programs, HTML, database management, ASP, PHP, XML, CSS, Javascript, Flash (Expert in some of these).
- Ministry – Pastoral Leadership, small group leadership, leadership development.
- Communication – Exceptional online communication experience, phone skills, writing, public speaking, creative communication, and blogging.
- General – Project management, organization, multi-tasking, cultural relevance.
Of course, feel free to add/subtract, and change according to your needs…!
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31 Responses to “A Great Example Job Description for a (Rockstar) Internet Campus Pastor”
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This is phenomenal. Thanks for posting this, bud.
This is a great requirements list! While this is definitely a lot to ask for in a single package, it’s definitely not impossible. There are lots of folks out there who are doing most or all of this right now.
Is this for a current job opening?
I'm interested…
What about experience in web analytics, web usability and coding to standards?
a good addition perhaps…!
word 2 ur mother.
That is overwhelming to me. But I guess it is something to shoot for
I'm sure this particular job desc is more like a wishlist. Mastering one particular skill takes 10,000 hours of practice, which I doubt any single person could ascertain in all areas mentioned above. So, I assume the an internet campus pastor would need to have experience in these, but not necessarily be a rockstar in all…maybe only one.
In my opinion, the best internet pastor would be a 'pastor' with superb management and leadership development skills to hire the right people, invest well in those people, and then deploy them to make stuff happen. Just my thought…
I would have to agree with Scott here. IMHO, this job description is overwhelming for any single person to handle. I've drank the "specialization of labor" Kool-Aid and believe it is more important to get skilled people in their strengths rather than look for a jack-of-all-trades type person.
This job description is definitely looking for the latter.
While ensuring a high level design, managing web content and uptime are all critical to church function, those are extremely peripheral to the what I believe the primary responsibilities of an Internet Campus Pastor should be: mobilizing people/resources to advancing the Gospel online.
I've never seen a web designers job description include making pastoral care phone calls. Why would you ask your Internet Campus Pastor to be knowledgeable with design, information architecture, SEO best practices, etc.?
Internet Campus Pastoring and Web Managing are two _extremely_ divergent worlds to me.
Couldn't you just put: Job Description – We are looking for someone to be John Saddington.
That was exactly what I was thinking.
haha.
problem is that i'm not really "pastoral". i'm a mean person.
i can understand why this would feel overwhelming because you are combining so many vocations: communications, marketing, internet marketing/IT, and ministry. you can get degrees in each of those areas so it's pretty tough to find an experienced candidate in all of those (plus you gotta like the person…heh.).
I would agree. I think the overwhelming part for me is I would like to be proficient in all of this stuff, but I am not.
The pressure for me is that to get a job in churches doing this stuff you have to be proficient, but I have not had anyone teach me this stuff, I have learned as much as I can by myself. There seems to be some kind of gap between the church looking for the staff and the training of the individuals to fill this role.
People like this are becoming more common. I've met lots of people who are either techies by vocation and ministers on the side or ministers by vocation and techies on the side. This job description simply combines the two.
Most of the people like this that I've met only have degrees in one or the other though. As an example, my degree is MIS and my career so far career has been mash up of tech and business: systems architecture, tech writer, proposal writer, business development / marketing, and business analysis. Yet through all of this I've constantly maintained ministries on nights and weekends. I've met plenty of others like me who are both passionate for ministry and experienced with tech.
Keep your expectations high, John. I really have no doubt that you'll find what you're looking for.
I think the hard part is the "Pastoral Leadership" bit. I think you may have trouble finding someone who's served in a *pastoral* role who is also experienced (and current) in development and design.
People like this are becoming more common. I've met lots of people who are either techies by vocation and ministers on the side or ministers by vocation and techies on the side. This job description simply combines the two.
Most of the people like this that I've met only have degrees in one or the other though. As an example, my degree is MIS and my career so far has been mash up of tech and business: systems architecture, tech writer, proposal writer, business development / marketing, and business analysis. Yet through all of this I've constantly maintained ministries on nights and weekends. I've met plenty of others like me who are both passionate for ministry and experienced with tech.
Keep your expectations high, John. I really have no doubt that you'll find what you're looking for.
In my professional experience (in the secular world), I've found it difficult to find techies with decent communication skills. Plus you gotta tag on the ministry experience on top of it.
I'm kind of that hybrid myself. Degree in marketing but my career took a curve and I worked in Web development and Internet marketing for several years before focusing more on brand management (still running point on Internet marketing). Then I serve as a volunteer worship leader at our church on top of juggling an active family and side business.
So much for "free time" eh?
It seems it would take one to know one, or at least a committee of people to know one.
Oh, if only my own church could support this as a staff person(oh and at an IT manager salary). I would love this position. I am always telling my wife, if I could just do all I do at church and get paid enough to pay the mortgage I would leave my full time job. Thanks for the hope that there could be a future in full time ministry.
I think this is pretty close to my dream job.
I know the feeling.