Riverside Church is a church of 1000 in Fort Myers, FL. They are two opportunities for learning at Riverside: one in kids ministry & one in student ministry.
Expected Work Hours: 20-30
Expected Monthly Pay: Up to $1,000 reimbursed expenses per month.
What are your greatest hopes and dreams for the next couple of years for your church? We are looking at planting churches//campuses in the next 3-5 years. Residency is huge piece of this for us, but we are also re-working our group model to be more neighborhood based and focused. We have been blessed with 36 acres and are dreaming about how to steward that for the community. We dream of having more people on our campus Monday thru Saturday than come on a Sunday. We believe things like sports, splash pad water parks, playgrounds, disc golf course, coffee shop etc. will draw people to our property who would never walk through the doors of our church. This is where our vision comes into play. We want to place Intentional Disciple-Makers into relational spaces (like some I mentioned above) to build relationship and earn the right to share the gospel.
Why did you choose to do a residency & what are you hopeful will happen through this process? We have a huge heart for developing young leaders. We want to put our money where our mouth is and build up a bench of young leaders who are being equipped for ministry and immersed in our culture. We will then hire some as we have need and send out the rest with great recommendations.
Why did you choose to do a residency & what are you hopeful will happen through this process? We are using residency as a pipeline to develop the next generation of young ministry leaders within our church.
What is it like to work on staff there? Our staff is highly relational. We work hard and play hard. We love to laugh with each other and interact often each day as we have offices that force us to be close physically and collaborate. We see this as a huge advantage and don’t want to lose the closeness and collaboration. We are far more concerned with our team being and making disciples than what they produce in their ministry role. At the same time, we want to steward our roles and the flock well. We have a flexible work schedule based on ministry needs and operate under a high trust culture.
Does your church’s website state the mission, vision, values and key distinctives of your church? Please paste the link: https://www.riversidechurch.org/missionvisionvalues
Please describe the current staff structure. We have our Lead Pastor and Executive Pastor who make up our Executive Team. They work closely with the Elders and lead all things staff and vision. The next layer of leadership is our Lead Team (Ops Director, Next Gen Director, Spiritual Formations Pastor, Executive Team). This team leads our staff week to week and works at the 30,000ft level as we plan out strategy for the next 3-5 years. The rest of our staff report to someone on the Lead Team and tackle the day-to-day ministry and have most direct contact with the body.
What qualities does it take to “win” on staff at your church? Hungry, Humble, Smart. (Taken from Patrick Lencioni’s “Ideal Team Player”
Hungry – Someone who brings solutions and not just problems. Someone who has a desire to grow as a leader and does things with excellence. Someone always looking to make things better and is assessing what they are doing to ensure it is working.
Humble – Someone who initiates inviting feedback and knows feedback is a gift. Someone who knows it is not about them. We are here to serve, not build a platform.
Smart – This is EQ, not IQ. Someone who understands people and enjoys relationship. This means someone that is willing to have hard conversations and not have the meeting after the meeting. Someone who shepherds and leads people well personally and within their ministry
Who will the resident report to? Will there be a different person acting as coach? The Student Resident will report to our Student Pastor. The Kids Resident will report to our Next Gen Director.
Are there particular assessment tools that you prefer when exploring potential staff people? Team Sight has been a common language for us.
Are you affiliated with a particular denomination or tribes/association of churches? If so, what websites could one investigate to gain further understanding? No.
What are the key doctrinal and theological issues where alignment is essential? Eternal Security would be a big one for us. The gospel being far bigger than a prayer.
What is your average weekend attendance? 1,100
In general, what is your church demographic? We have a decent mix of ages, but lean a tad older as we are in retirement heaven! Our diversity is growing in a really cool way recently which has been an answer to prayer.
Is there more than one site or venue? If so, please describe. No.
How many conversions has your church had in the past 12 months? (however you define this and whatever you count) This past year we had 30 baptisms.
What percentage of people are involved in a small group? 60% of people are involved in a small group.
What is your church known for in the community? Our church is known as highly relational and recently our local outreach efforts have been getting a lot of notice in the community.
How much are you planning on financially compensating your resident? Is it set or is it flexible? We are planning to reimburse up to $1,000/month. We will also have host homes to take care of lodging costs.
What are the expected work hours and what does a typical workweek look like for this resident? 25-30 hours. This can look different depending on the ministry area. For example, Students meet on Wednesday nights, so that would be an anchor night to work. Our full time staff work from 9-4 in the office Monday thru Thursday.
What else would you say to a resident considering joining your team? We are so excited to come alongside you in your journey towards full time ministry! The reason I [Matt Nations, Executive Pastor] am in ministry is because someone gave me a shot when I was young and took a chance on me. They believed in me and genuinely cared more about me than what I could produce for them or the church. I didn’t realize it then, but I know now what a gift that was for me. Based on that experience, I want to provide that same thing for as many young leaders as I can. We would consider it an honor to pour into young leaders and cheer them on as they learn and grow.
