The start to this fall ministry season has felt exciting. One of the areas of excitement is in our Student Ministry (grades 6-8 & 9-12) where we are getting to know new friends, having fun together and having conversations about faith. A highlight this fall was sending 14 students and 6 leaders to the BIC Jr High retreat at Camp Kahquah!
While there is reason to be excited about our Student Ministries, we know that there is room to grow and that we want to invest in our students through hiring a Director of Student Ministries.
By way of recap, over the last year we have advertised for this position three different times and even had some encouraging interviews. Unfortunately, these processes have not yielded a successful candidate for a variety of reasons. While this has been discouraging, we recognize that this result has not been unique to us at Westheights. Indeed, many employers have reported that hiring in this season has been difficult.
At one point in this process we had included ministry to Young Adults in this role. But we have since asked Pastor Char to assume the leadership of this ministry. We have appreciated the creativity and care that Char shows this ministry and have expanded her hours in acknowledgement of this increased responsibility.
After taking some time to regroup and review our needs, we have decided to once again advertise our student ministry position. This position will be part-time (30 hours/week) and the primary focus will be to grow our ministry to students in grades 6-12. If you are interested in looking at the job description and posting, you can find it here. We will be taking applications throughout the month of November.
How can I help?
We are glad you asked!
First, please pray for wisdom and discernment for those who will be a part of the search and interview process, and that we will find the right person who will be a good fit for Westheights, lead our Student Ministries and connect well with our students.
Second, please share our job posting with the people in your networks. Sometimes personal connections are more effective than job boards.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me joshmutter@westheights.org or Jeff Willmer (Board Chair) boardchair@westheights.org.
Pastor Josh