If you joined us in worship on June 18th, you would have heard our hiring team members – Nikki Milbrath (team lead) and Christi Chew share an important update regarding our search for a Director of Worship!
The Process
The worship hiring team started meeting in late April, with an orientation led by Pastor Emily that outlined the positions, process, and values that would house the search. Team members were Lara Chang, Christie Chew, Michelle Chu, Evan Coughenour, Andrew Tremblay, Rhonda Wilson, and Nikki Milbrath reviewed feedback from the spring congregational survey and insight circles, along with the ministry descriptions, to develop and refine a hiring rubric that shaped interview questions. We pored over submission materials and interviewed candidates on Zoom in two rounds. At the end of our second round of interviews, we made our recommendation to Pastor Emily and together we are excited to announce that our new Director of Worship will be Jason Morrell!
Of course you’ve seen him on stage in the last month or so serving as our interim worship leader, but depending on how long you’ve been in the City Church orbit, you may or may not know that Jason first came onto staff 10 years ago as the worship leader at our second site in the Mission, where he served for many years until it closed in 2016. Since then, he’s worn many hats at City Church, from running the live stream in deep COVID to spearheading our Muni bus ad campaign this spring. He has proven himself to be a team player by stepping into various roles as needed.
Throughout the interview process Jason demonstrated to the hiring team thoughtful introspection about his own faith journey and where City Church can grow. We learned about the many other worship communities he has served, including the Sunday Night Service at All Souls Episcopal Parish in Berkeley (alongside our recent guest preacher, Emily Hansen Curran) and The Vine service at Grace Cathedral (where he was a part of bringing to life the Sister Act Sing-along Pride Mass and Beyonce Mass). I’ve personally witnessed how Jason has grown and stretched as a worship leader since his time leading the Mission site and developed a real gift for bringing in new voices and perspectives into the worship experience.
The last thing I’ll say, as someone who has partnered musically with Jason for many years both inside and outside the church, is that he doesn’t play it safe but he creates an environment where I feel safe to take risks. And taking risks is how we can really grow. We’re excited to have him lead us into this next chapter of worship at City Church!
— Christie Chew
Worship Hiring Team Member
Long time Worship Team Member
Hello, City Church!
As I've gone through the process with our Worship Hiring Team, I have not only been reaffirmed in my sense of call to San Francisco but also to my calling as a Worship Director. Throughout my teen years at City Church, I have had the opportunity to see our church live more and more into our calling as a place of healing and inclusion, and City Church has been that for me. We found one another at a point in my life when I was in the middle of my own journey of faith deconstruction, having led worship and worked primarily in Evangelical Churches up to that point.
As I've found out in my life and story, while it may seem impossible to see in the moment, if you are willing to listen, learn, and grow, God will guide you into the spaces and places that you need for that season in your life. City Church was one of those spaces that allowed me to ask all the questions. This was true again in 2017 when the Mission Campus was closed down. While it was incredibly devastating to experience, this allowed me to have space and time to explore and lead worship in communities outside the bounds of City Church; communities that were pastored and led by incredibly thoughtful leaders who were fully affirming and pursuing anti-racist values in their own ministry contexts. I experienced powerful moments of worship and community and, at the same time, was given a new vantage point to my own work at City Church within Community, Operations, Livestreaming through COVID, and for the last year, Communications and Evangelism. The last several years have been a season of growth and creativity as I have served our church in innovative ways across those areas of ministry. As I return to the role of Worship Director, I am bringing with me all of the new tools, learnings, and experiences I gained to help shape the next chapter of our worshiping life together. I am also bringing with me the stories, hopes, and desires that many of you have shared with me about the type of community and church that you sense we are growing into. (I also hope to get to know many more of you in the coming months, so let’s go for a walk or get a beverage!)
I am grateful for the hiring team's invitation to be your next Worship Director, and as I said on Sunday, this is our ministry, not the Jason Morrell show. Because of this, I need you to be involved and to step into this season with expectation and hope. So please, offer your talents, gifts, and abilities in singing, playing, reading, and even running the livestream or sound. We will continue to support artists and create a space for artists of all levels to thrive in community. I also hope that we will lean into new expressions of writing new songs, dance, drama, and new forms of art.
The four words that have fueled a new vision, as well as the conversations with the hiring team, have been Creativity, Risk, Beauty, and Family. CREATIVITY that rejects norms and embraces innovation. RISK that rejects a spirit of fear and empowers artists of all levels to become more fully alive. BEAUTY that reflects our Community and mirrors our beautiful City by the Bay, in all its forms, shapes, colors, textures, and flavors. And finally, FAMILY, because we've proven that we can do hard things and still show up for one another to play our part. There is a place for you in the Worshiping life of our community at City Church, so consider this your first invitation to join me in this work.
With gratitude,
Jason Morrell