Reservoir is Hiring

June 7, 2017

Reservoir Church is a dynamic, multi-ethnic, inclusive, Jesus-centered faith community in North Cambridge, Massachusetts. Four to five hundred people attend our weekly Sunday services and programs. We host thirty community groups and are involved in many local and global partnerships. In all that we do, we aim to inspire people to discover the love of God, the joy of living, and the gift of community. Learn more about our community.

Reservoir has a pastoral retirement at the end of 2017 and is seeking to add a high capacity pastor to our team. Our start date is flexible, but the following criteria are not. Our preferred candidate:

• Maintains a vital, experienced personal communion with Jesus.
• Studies and teaches the Bible, familiar with more progressive and conservative interpretations.
• Encourages people into a Spirit-filled life of following Jesus, rather than a pre-set worldview or lifestyle. (Reservoir practices what we call a centered-set Jesus ministry, with a “third way” approach to ethical differences and matters of conscience. This includes LGBT inclusion.)  
• Joyfully engages in thinking and relationship with a post-Christian, pluralist, and secular world.
• Practices relational skills of empathy, reconciliation, hospitality, and love that make you a delight to lead, partner with, and follow.
• Is enthusiastically committed to personal and professional growth.
• Brings diversity of identity and experience to our pastoral team serving a diverse congregation, which is inter-generational, a blend of urban and suburban, and multi-ethnic. (We are approximately two-thirds White, with the other third of our people largely African-American/African and Asian-American.)

Reservoir Church offers our new pastor the following and more:

• A senior pastor, Board, and team that will be utterly committed to the development of this person, including resources for ongoing learning and growth.
• A uniquely diverse church: multi-ethnic; members of significant socio-economic status but also a class-diverse, urban church footprint; third way on controversial issues and inclusive of all people; roots and interest in social justice, Bible, Holy Spirit renewal, and innovation.
• For a church, competitive pay and benefits. Position is listed as assistant pastor – given more experience and training, we could hire as an associate or promote quickly to associate (we don’t use this difference publicly, but there is a difference in supervisory responsibility and pay.)
• A large enough church with enough resources to offer great job security and the opportunity to stay long-term, be equipped to launch out elsewhere with great training after a few years, or be considered for senior pastor succession eventually – as interest and God lead.
• Opportunity to specialize but also to contribute to any area of church life and leadership (e.g. preaching, leadership, local outreach and community development, innovation, etc.)
• A warm, supportive, happy, low-drama and low-politics church leadership and congregation.
• A cutting edge approach in doing church, and Jesus/Kingdom of God ministry for and with a pluralistic culture.
• We are aware of the risk inherent in recruiting a person of color to partner with a White senior pastor and a majority White staff team. We are happy to speak openly and transparently about this in the hiring process. Our Board is multi-ethnic. Our Board and senior pastor are also experienced in cross-cultural relationships and want this new pastor to be a new partner with leadership input into all aspects of church culture.

Contact Reservoir senior pastor Steve Watson (steve@reservoirchurch.org) for a confidential conversation about your story and Reservoir, or to request further information.

Deadline for applications is August 11th.

A PDF version of this job description is available here.