Our Next Pastor

Ridge Baptist Church seeks a Pastor to lead us into a new season of ministry.  We have completed a self-study using resources from the Center for Healthy Churches.  In light of what we’ve learned about ourselves and our community, these attributes best describe a constructive ministry in our setting:

Education and Experience

We seek someone who possesses a Master of Divinity degree or its equivalent, from a seminary accredited by the Association of Theological Schools.  We prefer a candidate with five years of experience as a pastor, but we’ll also consider candidates with five years of relevant experience in a church or other ministry setting.  Candidates should be ordained or willing to be ordained to Christian ministry.

Leadership Qualities

We seek a Pastor who employs a collaborative leadership style, working in harmony with the church’s Deacons and ministry teams.  Our church functions best when the Pastor and laypersons cooperate to establish a shared vision and goals.

Our next Pastor should demonstrate capacities for initiative and creativity.  We seek someone who can lead us to evaluate new options for ministry and establish focused priorities.  This would be accomplished in two-way conversation with the Deacons and other groups in the church. Along with these abilities, our next Pastor would ideally be a person with functional skills in problem-solving, volunteer-motivation, and teaching that supports leadership development.

In our setting, good leadership involves open and honest communication.  We trust our next Pastor to maintain a continuing conversation, articulating mutual goals and keeping us informed on matters related to the welfare of the church.  The person who functions best here will communicate clearly and listen attentively.

We understand that ministry requires flexibility and the capacity to adapt to ongoing changes.  These are attributes we would welcome in our next Pastor, even as we seek to cultivate them in ourselves.

Personal Qualities

We want our next Pastor to be at ease with us.  We seek someone who can freely use their own personal gifts and skills in genuine ministry. We recognize every minister is an individual with particular personality traits and talents.  Our discussions have reminded us to support and be patient with the humanity of our Pastor, and we trust that the next Pastor will show the same disposition toward us!

There are some specific personal qualities we value most.  We’d like our Pastor to be a “people” person, endeavoring to connect individually to members of the congregation. There’s strong consensus that the Pastor should relate as a caring and empathetic person.  While maintaining the self-discipline to stay “on-task,” we’d like our next Pastor to give genuine attention to people, because personal relationships create a foundation for congregational health.

The kind of pastoral care we’re describing is especially attentive to persons in crisis, but also nurtures growing relationships in times of routine. We think a good Pastor is the sort of person who recognizes the image of God in every person and takes the time to cultivate it. 

Ridge Baptist Church seeks a person with a genuine sense of calling to be our Pastor.  We envision this person as a servant leader demonstrating spiritual and emotional maturity and the ability to persevere through the changes and challenges of Christian ministry.

We are now accepting applications for our Senior Pastor position. You may send your information to us through jobs@ridgechurch.org or mailing to our church address in care of the Pastor Search Committee.