At City Church San Francisco, we aspire to be an inclusive community that follows Jesus with our heads, our heart, and our hands. Guided by our core beliefs, we pursue this with a commitment to anti-racist values, as we seek to introduce or reintroduce people to God and welcome everybody (believer and doubter, gay and straight, young and young at heart) right where they are; to offer something good and helpful to the world that promotes God’s vision of wholeness of life for all. 

Position Overview:

We seek a Pastor for Liturgical Arts to steward the overall visual and aesthetic experience of worship life at City Church San Francisco. Together, with the Senior Pastor and Worship Leader(s), this Pastor will be responsible for ensuring that our values, teachings, and culture are embedded throughout our liturgical and aesthetic life. The Pastor for Liturgical Arts will carry forward and cultivate City Church’s ongoing commitment to incorporating the arts to our worship life for the sake of deepening the spiritual imaginations of the community, while broadening our visual vocabulary for theological reflection throughout the liturgical calendar. The ideal candidate will:

• Have a deep sense of call to creating avenues for congregants to find avenues for encountering God through arts, worship aesthetics, and somatic expressions of faith
• Possess a pastoral heart that seeks to be attuned with and attentive to the diverse spiritual locations of congregants
• Find joy in cultivating opportunities for new experiences of worship.

Essential Responsibilities/Duties to support City Church SF’s Mission:

1) Oversight of weekly Sunday services and occasional special services:

• Attend to the overall experience and aesthetics of services
• Primary supervisor for worship (co)leaders and support them as they lead teams
• Collaborate with the Senior Pastor and Worship Leader(s) on sermon series development, including facilitating congregational input
• Recruiting, training, and coordinating volunteers for worship services (ie, scripture readers, greeters, communion servers, etc)
• Maintain ongoing training, development, evaluation and review for worship leaders
• Designing, planning, and coordinating worship during Sunday services and other special worship seasons and services (Advent - Longest Night, Christmas Eve; Lent - Holy Week, Easter).
• Regular leadership in presiding over the eucharist and as liturgist, occasional preaching

2) Lead liturgical design across seasons and life of the church

• Deep appreciation and knowledge of liturgical seasons on the Christian calendar and the capacity to critically engage them while communicating about them in a compelling and accessible way for congregants
• Researching, writing, collating and preparing liturgy for Sunday and special services
• Writing and coordinating liturgies that are inclusive, pastorally attentive, multi-vocal, theologically thoughtful, critically engaged, and aligned with the reformed tradition for the execution of expression in worship life
• Ensuring a variety of elements and styles that are attentive to welcoming and inspiring the church community into full participation in worship and faithful living

3) Congregational engagement and liturgical praxis

• Meet regularly with congregants to listen and learn about the spiritual questions, needs, and areas of formation for the sake of shaping worship design and aesthetics that connect them to the broader Christian story in rich and diverse ways that, uplift, challenge, and inform
• Reflect, discern and strategize with the Senior Pastor and staff regarding overarching themes and resources/ideas for pursuit
• Occasional teaching – classes, Bible studies, workshops, retreats
• Ability to communicate liturgical traditions aligned with reformed theology in an accessible way

4) Arts integration for the enhancement of spiritual formation and worship experience:

• Developing relationships with local artists and artist collectives for the sake of creative collaboration that expands the theological and spiritual imaginations of congregants and creates avenues for building external presence in the city
• Commissioning and/or creating works for special seasons and services

5) Cultivating team relationships and feedback loops:

• Meeting weekly with Pastor for Liturgical Arts and worship (co)leaders to ensure clear communication, planning, and alignment
• Meeting regularly (along with worship leaders) with volunteers and contract musicians to ensure clear communication, planning, and alignment as well as offer feedback loops for cultivating the ministry
• Alongside worship staff and Senior Pastor, meeting with interested congregants for semi-annual “worship roundtable” meetings to solicit feedback and ideas for ensuring that worship is reflective of church values and commitments    

Core Competencies:

• Widely read and knowledge and deep catalog of diverse liturgical resources
• Entrepreneurial and experimental
• Collaborative and team-oriented
• Strong communication skills
• Can make connections between spiritual needs/questions and liturgical expression of faith

To Apply:

Submit the following materials to office@citychurchsf.org

• Resume or CV 
• Cover letter (in letter or video format) that describes:
• Why do you sense a call to join the ministries of City Church San Francisco?
• The ways in which you have demonstrated the following five characteristics in previous areas of ministry leadership.
  • Committed Christian. Can speak critically, compassionately, intelligently, and with conviction about how the life-giving, liberating, and loving work of Jesus animates their own life and sense of call to inclusive ministry.
  • Collaborative. Enjoys the process of ideation and problem-solving with others, receiving constructive feedback, appreciates diverse perspectives, and is self-aware.
  • Open to Correction. A humble orientation to ministry, work, and execution that builds in feedback loops, is comfortable with admitting when things didn’t go as planned, and can approach failure with a growth mindset.
  • A Builder. Has experience building — and iterating on — programs, initiatives, or events which creatively and effectively meet the spiritual questions, needs, and growth edges of congregants that cultivate sustained engagement.
  • Integrity. Reliable, hard-working, honest, trustworthy, and generous spirited.
• What areas of ministry in which we seek leadership do you feel most gifted or called to serve?

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