Pastor of Hospitality & Adult Discipleship

The Job Title : Pastor of Hospitality & Adult Discipleship

The Context: Spring Garden Church at the corner of Spring Garden and Kenneth Ave in Willowdale, a neighbourhood in the city of Toronto, Ontario.

The Role: A Pastor to bring leadership in helping new comers to the church, newcomers to Canada, and current community members of Spring Garden to become more rooted in community. This pastor will oversee and develop discipleship pathways through which the community can deepen their relationships with God and one another. The position is part-time permanent.

Who We Are: We are a community that believes in a triune, humble, creative and relational God of grace who is our centre and who loves this broken world. Because of this, we seek to be a people of faith who grow as holistic followers of Jesus—disciples who love God, love each other and our neighbour, share God’s story, and show God’s care.

Within our current pastoral team, we have pastors and staff giving leadership to communal worship, communications, children, youth and young adult discipleship, and the overall leadership and upholding the shared core values of the community.

We believe that God calls us to come together as a diverse community of believers, and therefore we want to walk together, supporting one another physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We know that God uses community to deepen and mature our faith as, led by God’s Spirit, we support and encourage one another in embracing an intimate and transformational relationship with Jesus.

Bringing humble and creative leadership to deepening the personal and communal embodiment of this value is where we see the important place of the Pastor of Hospitality and Adult Discipleship on our pastoral team.

Required Competencies

Relational Competencies:

• Humility and passion from a growing and transformative relationship with Jesus
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Excellent judgement and ability to maintain confidentiality
• Passion for seeing people grow in their relationship with Jesus and the importance of community in discipleship formation
• Ability to respond in a friendly manner to a wide diversity of personalities
• Ability to work collaboratively with the Pastoral Team
• Engaging in team conversation about specific projects and issues
• Open to building healthy relationships with team members as laid out in the Pastoral Team Agreement (available on request)
• Ability to work enthusiastically in the culture of SGC as reflected in our Statement of Values (available on request)
• Willingness to regularly participate in SGC worship as a part of the community

Technical Capacities:

• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Strong administrative skills
• Ability to build and lead teams, working alongside others as a team player
• Proactive thinking and planning on a yearly scope
• Ability to prioritize and work on multiple projects simultaneously
• Ability to recruit, equip and support ministry partners
• Competency in event planning
• Intercultural awareness

Essential Duties/Responsibilities (including, but not limited to)

Spring Garden deeply values the relational nature of faith and ministry. We believe that nurturing healthy relationships with one another is an intrinsic part of integrated discipleship.

This role is for a pastor who can help us to grow in our relationships with one another by assisting and advancing opportunities for deepening communal relationships and integrated discipleship. As a community that values unity in diversity and interculturality, this is a pastoral role to help us continue to grow in being a safe and welcoming community for people regardless of who they are or where they come from.

Responsibilities include:

Overseeing Hospitality of Spring Garden Church

• Our desire is to find inviting ways of helping newcomers to Canada, people new to Spring Garden, and those ‘on the edges’ who want to integrate deeper into community.
• Provide leadership to Sunday morning hospitality.
• Equipping and inspiring ministry partners involved in Sunday morning hospitality in being a welcoming and safe presence.
• Administrating schedules to the greeting, ushering, welcome desk, connectors, and refreshment teams.
• Collaborating with Co-Lead Pastors and the Pastoral Team in strengthening individual and communal intercultural adaptation.

Pathways of Belonging

• Overseeing pathways of belonging for those who are seeking a deeper sense and experience of community, connection and belonging.
• Key areas for fostering belonging are through, but not limited to, home groups and other small group ministry, and Sunday Morning Hospitality.
• Community Life
  • Overseeing, planning and implementing congregational events designed for building community as part of integrated discipleship (e.g. Sunday refreshment time, New2Spring lunches, Potlucks, BBQs, IHOP, retreats, Neighbourhood potlucks, Women’s nights, etc.).
  • Collaborating with the Pastoral team and the Community Life Deacon to facilitate initiatives that are aligned with church wide scheduling and have community wide integration.

Discipleship Pathways

• Developing and implementing different pathways for people to mature in their relationship with Christ and the community.
• Encouraging, inspiring, equipping and supporting home groups; training, equipping and team building with home group leaders/facilitators.
• Being a person of contact and support for other small groups (e.g. Sunday morning bible study, support groups, etc.).
• Identifying and initiating additional Adult Discipleship ministry in collaboration with the Pastoral Team (e.g. Sunday morning bible studies, prayer retreats, short term small group series’, visiting home groups, etc.).

Pastoral Care (one on one with congregants as requested)

Other duties as required

Additional Qualifications

M. Div or equivalent preferred

Previous ministry experience preferred

Spring Garden Church is part of the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec.