Lead Pastor
The Christian and Missionary Alliance
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Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
Long Hill Chapel in Chatham, NJ, seeks a Christ-centered Lead Pastor to faithfully preach God's Word, shepherd a healthy, growing congregation, and guide the church into its next season of discipleship, mission, and Kingdom impact.
The ideal candidate will be spiritually mature, aligned with CMA doctrine, and skilled at developing leaders, casting vision, and partnering with Elders to unite ministries around a shared purpose.
Qualifications
- Clear calling to pastoral ministry and a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
- Agreement with CMA doctrine and mission.
- Pastoral experience including preaching, discipleship, and leadership development.
- Bachelor degree in ministry-related field; ongoing learning encouraged.
Responsibilities
- Preach and teach God's Word with biblical gospel clarity.
- Shepherd the church through pastoral care, prayer, and biblical encouragement.
- Deepen relational discipleship and multiply emerging leaders.
- Provide vision and oversight for ministries aligned with the church's mission.
- Collaborate with Elders and staff to steward healthy rhythms and governance.
Skills
Education
Job description
LEAD PASTOR PROFILE
Long Hill Chapel
Chatham, New Jersey
A HEALTHY PERSPECTIVE TO BEGIN FROM
Long Hill Chapel enters this next season with a healthy and stable foundation and a sense of hope about the future. The church benefits from meaningful worship, biblical teaching, strong relationships, committed leaders and volunteers, and people who desire to follow Jesus and serve others. These are important strengths to recognize and steward as the church prayerfully considers what God may be calling us to next.
The next Lead Pastor will have the opportunity to build upon that foundation while helping the congregation take meaningful next steps. We recognize that health does not mean the absence of challenges. Every season of ministry requires discernment, adaptability, spiritual courage, and a willingness to respond faithfully to changing circumstances. The church seeks a pastor who will listen carefully, lead wisely, build trust, and help the congregation discern together where God is leading.
One of the most important opportunities ahead is cultivating a deeper and more intentional culture of discipleship. This will require more than strengthening programs or increasing participation. It will mean helping people understand more fully what it means to follow Jesus and creating relationships and environments where people are known, prayed for, challenged, spiritually formed, equipped, and prepared to disciple others. The next pastor will need to articulate a compelling biblical vision for discipleship, develop and equip leaders, and invite the congregation to follow Jesus into deeper faith, greater maturity, meaningful community, and active participation in His mission.
There are also opportunities to bring greater clarity to the church s direction, strengthen alignment among ministries, develop emerging leaders, and build upon the congregation s desire to reach and serve its community. This work will require both patient relationship-building and intentional leadership.
Our church approaches this transition with gratitude for its foundation, realism about the work ahead, and hope for what God may yet accomplish. The next Lead Pastor will have the opportunity to steward existing strengths while challenging, equipping, and encouraging the congregation toward greater spiritual depth, clarity, participation, and Kingdom impact.
A Healthy & Stable Church Ready for Its Next Season
Long Hill Chapel seeks a Christ-centered, spiritually mature Lead Pastor who will faithfully preach and teach God's Word, shepherd people with wisdom and compassion, and lead a healthy congregation into its next season of discipleship, mission, and Kingdom impact. This is a future-building role: the next pastor will honor what God has already established while helping the church become increasingly clear about its direction, more deeply connected in spiritual community, intentional about multiplying leaders, and visible in community mission.
Why Join Our Ministry Team
- Unique Opportunity: Lead a family-oriented, healthy and stable church committed to helping people grow in their walk with Jesus, developing future leaders, and continuing the work God has already begun.
- Ministry Context: Serve a relational community where families are valued and people are seeking meaningful connections, biblical truth, and opportunities to live out their faith together.
- Church Life: Build on strong worship, meaningful ministry participation, loving relationships, discipleship, youth and family ministries, and missional efforts.
- Supportive Community: Join a congregation, Elder Board, staff, and ministry team that values partnership, prayer, collaboration, trust, and the equipping of others.
- Growth Potential: Strengthen relational discipleship, clarify shared vision, multiply leaders, invest in young families, and translate existing missional instincts into coordinated community impact.
- Ministry/Life Balance: Serve in a welcoming community with strong schools and family-focused neighborhoods while practicing healthy rhythms of Sabbath, vacation, continuing education, and sustainable ministry.
Church - Long Hill Chapel
Location - 525 Shunpike Road, Chatham, NJ 07928
Denomination - Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA)
Church Size - Approximately 200-230 attendees
Position Tpye - Full-time / salaried
Compensation - Total package, including base salary, housing allowance and benefits: $135,000 to $160,000, depending on qualifications and experience.
Benefits - Four weeks vacation and two weeks study leave annually, continuing education reimbursement allowance, paid sabbatical leave (every seven years in lieu of study leave), family health coverage, matching retirement contribution and SECA reimbursement.
The Leader Long Hill Chapel Needs Next
Recently, Long Hill Chapel completed a comprehensive health assessment. The assessment supports a search for a future-building pastor rather than a caretaker or turnaround specialist. Long Hill Chapel needs a leader who can protect healthy strengths, listen before changing, and help leverage existing health to create greater future impact.
Worship is a defining strength. The next pastor should be a biblical, engaging, applicable communicator who faithfully proclaims the finished work and Lordship of Jesus and helps people follow Him in everyday life.
The church is well organized, but greater clarity is needed around church-wide goals and how ministries connect. The next pastor should create shared direction without diminishing healthy systems or unnecessarily disrupting what is working.
The clearest leverage point is deeper relational discipleship. The next pastor should help move people from attendance and activity into communities where they are known, prayed for, spiritually formed, cared for through real-life challenges, and developed as disciples.
Gift-based ministry and teamwork are strong. The next pastor should equip and release people rather than becoming the center of ministry activity, asking consistently: 'Who are we developing next?'
The congregation already demonstrates relational concern for people who do not yet know Christ. The next pastor should help translate that instinct into visible, coordinated mission and community engagement.
The healthiest next leader will honor what God has already built, work well with Elders and staff, cultivate trust, listen carefully, and lead confidently without implying that a healthy congregation needs to be reinvented.
Calling, Formation & Experience
- Spiritual Maturity: A clear calling to pastoral ministry and a growing relationship with Jesus Christ demonstrated through humility, integrity, prayer, dependence on the Holy Spirit, and commitment to God's Word.
- Holiness & Integrity: The Lead Pastor will demonstrate a life of biblical integrity, personal holiness, and accountability, recognizing that pastoral leadership carries responsibility both in public ministry and private life. The pastor will seek to live consistently with the moral and ethical standards of Scripture in personal relationships, marriage and sexual conduct, financial stewardship, communication and social media, and all other personal and public dealings. This includes a willingness to live transparently and remain accountable to the Elder Board and the established standards and expectations of Long Hill Chapel and the Christian and Missionary Alliance. While recognizing that every follower of Jesus lives by grace and is continually being formed into Christlikeness, the Lead Pastor should model the character, wisdom, self-control, humility, and faithfulness expected of those entrusted with spiritual leadership.
- Theological Alignment: Agreement with the doctrine, values, mission, and Great Commission emphasis of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
- Experience: Demonstrated pastoral ministry experience including preaching, discipleship, leadership development, staff or ministry-team leadership, and shepherding a congregation of this size or larger.
- Education & Ongoing Development: The ideal candidate will have achieved a bachelor s degree in a ministry-compatible field and will demonstrate a strong commitment to lifelong learning and ongoing ministry development through active pursuit of continuing education, theological enrichment, leadership training, and other opportunities that strengthen pastoral and leadership effectiveness. In particular, training leading to a ministry-related master s degree is preferred. While formal education is valued, a demonstrated pattern of growth, teachability, and continued development is also essential.
- Denominational Licensing: Commitment to maintaining or actively pursuing C&MA licensing and credentialing requirements. The successful candidate must be ordained or on a path to ordination through a process acceptable to the C&MA within a year of hiring.
- Leadership Approach: A commitment to developing and empowering people of all ages and backgrounds to use their God-given gifts in ministry and service to advance God's Kingdom.
Character & Leadership Style
- A servant-focused leader who equips others, develops leaders, and encourages meaningful ministry involvement.
- A faithful biblical teacher with a passion for helping people grow as disciples of Jesus.
- A relational pastor who connects with individuals and families across generations and helps cultivate loving, spiritually meaningful community.
- A collaborative leader who works alongside the Elder Board as a first among equals and provides guidance of staff and ministry leaders accordingly, rather than as the center of all ministry.
- A calm, stable presence who can preserve congregational confidence during transition and lead change with discernment, patience, and clarity.
- A leader who communicates the 'why' behind ministry as clearly as the 'what,' helping people understand shared goals and how ministry areas work together.
- A pastor who values prayer, spiritual formation, healthy rhythms, and personalized care while developing systems that allow the whole body to minister.
Preach, Shepherd, Equip & Lead
We understand that no pastor is gifted in every area and joyfully embrace the biblical call to equip, empower, and develop others. The Lead Pastor is not called to carry the ministry alone, but to build teams, release people into their God-given gifts, and cultivate a culture where the whole church works together to advance the Kingdom of God.
- Provide Christ-centered spiritual leadership and faithfully preach and teach God's Word, helping the congregation know Jesus more deeply and grow as fully devoted disciples.
- Protect and build upon the church's strength in worship and preaching through biblical, relevant, Christ-centered communication.
- Shepherd the church through prayer, pastoral care, biblical encouragement, and a ministry culture dependent on the Holy Spirit.
- Deepen relational discipleship by strengthening small groups as environments of prayer, care, Scripture application, spiritual conversation, real-life support, newcomer integration, and leader multiplication.
- Provide vision and oversight for the church's ministries ensuring each ministry has clear direction and understands how its priorities and goals align with and advance the church s overall vision and mission.
- Develop and empower staff and ministry leaders, creating clear pathways from participant to volunteer to leader to leader-of-leaders.
- Lead the church in fulfilling the Great Commission by equipping and mobilizing the congregation for evangelism, disciple-making, and meaningful community engagement, building on Long Hill Chapel s strong relational and missional heart to expand its Kingdom impact in Chatham, the surrounding communities, and beyond.
- Serve as chairman of the Elder Board, as first among equals in a collaborative association, to seek God's direction, establish ministry priorities, and faithfully steward the mission of the C&MA.
- Work with the Elder Board to establish healthy rhythms that promote spiritual vitality, family well-being, long-term ministry effectiveness, and clear governance.
- Steward change wisely: listen before changing, preserve healthy ministries and systems, and focus leadership energy on the areas of highest Kingdom leverage.
Building a Unified, Multiplying Team
- Provide Christ-centered leadership that inspires, encourages, and equips staff members to flourish in their calling and faithfully fulfill the mission of the church.
- Cultivate a healthy staff culture characterized by trust, humility, collaboration, accountability, prayer, and mutual encouragement.
- Provide regular coaching, encouragement, and constructive feedback that helps each staff member grow personally, spiritually, and professionally.
- Align ministry priorities, goals, calendar, budget, and resources with the church's mission, vision, and a focused set of church-wide priorities.
- Encourage teamwork by recognizing and celebrating the unique gifts, experiences, and perspectives each staff member brings to ministry.
- Delegate responsibility appropriately, empowering staff and ministry leaders to make decisions, innovate, and lead confidently within their areas of responsibility.
- Promote healthy communication, collaboration, and problem-solving among staff, addressing conflict with biblical wisdom, grace, and truth.
- Champion continual learning through professional development, spiritual formation, leadership growth, and continuing education.
- Evaluate ministry effectiveness with respect to faithfulness, spiritual health, team unity, relational discipleship, leadership multiplication, mission, and meaningful outcomes not simply activity levels.
- Normalize leadership multiplication by expecting key leaders to identify, apprentice, and develop emerging leaders.
Performance Management
- Set clear objectives at the beginning of each year and revisit them through quarterly check-ins.
- Conduct an annual performance review to discuss progress, recognize strengths, identify areas for improvement, and establish goals for the coming year.
- Maintain ongoing coaching and development conversations.
- Use individual development plans based on ministry goals, gifting, and areas for growth.
- In the first pastoral season, emphasize measurable progress in relational discipleship, vision clarity, leadership multiplication, and coordinated mission while preserving the church's existing health.
Sustainable Ministry for the Long Haul
This is a full-time pastoral calling that requires flexibility in scheduling to meet the rhythms and needs of congregational life. Long Hill Chapel values a ministry approach that balances faithful presence and availability with the healthy, sustainable rhythms necessary for long-term pastoral effectiveness.
- Participate regularly in Sunday worship services, preaching, teaching, and other key ministry gatherings.
- Maintain consistent office hours and a meaningful community presence while balancing time for sermon preparation, leadership development, pastoral care, strategic planning, and prayer.
- Remain available, within reasonable expectations, for pastoral emergencies, crisis care, and significant life events within the congregation.
- Participate in evening and weekend meetings, ministry events, and outreach opportunities as needed.
- Meet regularly with the Elder Board, at least monthly, to support healthy communication, collaboration, spiritual discernment, and effective church governance.
- Maintain a regular weekly Sabbath and appropriate vacation and continuing education time, recognizing that healthy leaders are better positioned to lead healthy churches.
- Exercise wisdom and flexibility in managing time, with an emphasis on ministry effectiveness, healthy relationships, and meaningful outcomes rather than simply hours worked.
A First-Year Leadership Posture
The incoming Lead Pastor should begin with gratitude, listening, and discernment. The goal is not to arrive with a predetermined agenda or assume that significant change is needed simply because a new season has begun. Instead, the pastor should take time to understand Long Hill Chapel s people, culture, strengths, and opportunities, then work collaboratively with the Elders, staff, and congregation to identify a few connected priorities: deepen relational discipleship, clarify vision and ministry connection, multiply leaders, and strengthen coordinated mission. Success will look like a congregation that builds on an already healthy foundation while becoming increasingly clear in its direction, deeper in its relationships, more intentional about developing leaders, and more engaged in its community.
Questions Worth Exploring
- Tell us about a time you inherited a healthy ministry. How did you discern what to preserve and what to change?
- How have you built a discipleship culture in which people are known, prayed for, cared for, and growing spiritually?
- Give an example of how you clarified vision for a church or ministry without creating unnecessary disruption.
- Who are leaders you have personally developed, and what did your development process look like?
- How have you mobilized a congregation to engage its community and people who do not yet know Christ?
- How do you balance strong preaching and pastoral care with the biblical responsibility to equip others for ministry?
- How have you partnered with Elders or other governing leaders when you were not the only voice at the table?
- What rhythms help you remain spiritually healthy, relationally present, and sustainable in ministry?
CLOSING THOUGHTS ON THE LEAD PASTOR SEARCH
Long Hill Chapel enters this next season from a position of health, stability, and genuine hope for the future. God has established a strong foundation through faithful ministry, meaningful worship, committed leadership, engaged people, and a congregation that cares deeply about its church and its mission. The opportunity before the next Lead Pastor is to understand and steward these strengths while providing the spiritual leadership, wisdom, vision, and courage necessary to lead Long Hill Chapel faithfully into what comes next.
This next season also presents a significant and compelling leadership opportunity. Long Hill Chapel desires to deepen its culture of discipleship not simply by strengthening programs, but by developing the relationships, leadership pathways, ministry infrastructure, and shared practices that help people increasingly know and follow Jesus, care for one another, grow spiritually, and become equipped to disciple and lead others. Accomplishing this will require more than maintaining what already exists. It will take a pastor who can cast a compelling vision for spiritual formation, spark the imagination of the congregation, develop and release leaders, and mobilize people around a shared understanding of what it means to make disciples together.
The next Lead Pastor will also need the versatility and spiritual maturity to lead through seasons that cannot be anticipated. Healthy churches still encounter change, cultural pressures, community needs, organizational challenges, personal crises, and unexpected circumstances. Long Hill Chapel seeks a leader with the wisdom, steadiness, adaptability, and pastoral sensitivity to help the congregation navigate those moments faithfully while maintaining trust, unity, and a clear focus on its mission.
Long Hill Chapel is poised and positioned for God to continue moving in significant ways. There is a healthy foundation beneath the church, meaningful strengths upon which to build, and a congregation hopeful about what God may do next. The next Lead Pastor will have the opportunity and the responsibility to help bring greater clarity to the church s vision, deepen discipleship, multiply leaders, strengthen mission and community engagement, and invite the entire congregation into that future. This is an opportunity to steward what God has already built while courageously and prayerfully leading Long Hill Chapel toward greater faithfulness, fruitfulness, and Kingdom impact.
This position requires licensing with The Christian & Missionary Alliance. To learn more about the Alliance and requirements for licensing, please visit our website
Please do not contact the church directly.
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