Job titles ebb and flow—as one label becomes stale a new one rises to prominence. Your church doesn’t need to overhaul job titles and job descriptions just to stay hip. But it can’t hurt to understand the marketplace.
Over the last two years, ChurchSalary has gathered data on not just salaries but job titles, to better understand and meets the needs of the marketplace. The following article compiles some of the most current job title trends and patterns that we are observing among churches.
Pastor of _________
An oldie but a goodie, this construction remains a very popular way to describe how a pastor is related to or responsible for a specific ministry, role, or campus.
- Pastor of Worship & Implementation
- Pastor of Discipleship & Hospitality
- Pastor of Involvement
- Pastor of [Location]
Alternatives: Pastor of _________ Ministries (e.g., Pastor of Global Ministries, Pastor of Family Ministries, etc.).
_________ Pastor of _________
The first word in this title tends to reflect an individual’s pay grade or role within the organization's hierarchy. Are they an executive, assistant, or an associate pastor? The last word captures either the type of ministry they oversee or, in the case of pastors at multisite churches, it can reflect their oversight of a ministry that spans multiple campuses.
- Executive Pastor of
- Family and Discipleship
- Worship and Creativity
- Associate Pastor of [Location]
_________ Co-Pastor
More job titles are reflecting a “co-leadership” framework. These pastors are positioned as co-equals who work alongside someone who occupies the same space and title within the organization or team.
- Kids & Family Co-Pastor
- Co-Pastor of _________
- Co-Director of Youth Ministries
[Creative Church-Specific Descriptor] Pastor
Narrow, church-specific job titles are becoming more popular. These titles work great inside of your church and among your congregation. Nobody internally will have any questions about their duties and responsibilities. The down side is that these titles are hard to translate for outsiders and can look weird on resumes. For these reasons, it may not hurt to come up with a set of church-approved internal and external titles for these employees.
For example, one church we encountered uses the term “Rooted” to describe their small group and discipleship classes. Their goal is to get every member “rooted” in community and the Word to produce spiritual growth. The church could decide to assign their “Rooted Pastor” an external title of Small Groups or Discipleship Pastor.
- Rooted Pastor
- Serve Pastor
- Witness Pastor
- Cause and Care Pastor
- [Location or Group of Locations] Pastor
_________ Team Pastor
More and more churches are using the phrase “Team Pastor” as part of a job title. “Team” can mean at least two different things: (a) multisite church employees on staff at a specific campus/location collaborating across ministry domains or (b) a subset of employees working in the same ministry domain that spans multiple campuses and/or locations.
- Next Steps Team Pastor
- Tech Team Pastor
- [Location] Team Pastor
- e.g., Downtown Team Pastor
Campus _________ Pastor
Campus pastor is no longer limited to an employee who is singular responsible for leading the campus (functioning almost like an associate or senior pastor for worshippers connect to that location). Instead, multisite churches are adapting this terminology and applying the words “campus” and “pastor” in new ways.
This version of the pattern starts and ends the words “campus … pastor” but places a descriptor in the middle. In some cases, churches substitute a location or campus name for the word "campus" itself.
- Campus Children’s Pastor
- Campus Formation Pastor
- [Location] Assimilation Pastor
_________ Campus Pastor
An alternative of the above trend is to place the descriptor in front of “campus pastor.” Many of these job titles reflect a decision by a multisite church to designate a subsection of their congregation—an affiliation group or type of ministry—as a campus unto itself.
For example, in the two titles below the Online Campus Pastor is responsible for all online attendees because the church has designated their online ministry as a “campus” unto itself, within their multisite organizational structure. Similarly, the Children’s Campus Pastor example below oversees children’s ministry for the church across multiple campuses. The impression this title gives is that children are a campus unto themselves.
- Online Campus Pastor
- Children’s Campus Pastor
Lead _________ Pastor
One of the most intriguing trends we are observing is the evolution of “Lead Pastor.” In the past, this title was almost always reserved for the senior pastor of a church large enough to employ multiple pastors.
"Who is the Lead Pastor among your senior staff?"
In order to understand how the use of this title has expanded and changed, it is helpful to remind ourselves the reasons why churches began to shift away from Senior Pastor in the first place.
- Lead Pastor is a cool, fresh alternative to the stuffy sounding title of Senior Pastor.
- The word “senior” increasingly took on the connotation of older adults as opposed to seniority especially as Senior Pastors began to hire dedicated Senior Adult Pastors.
- Lead Pastor is a more positive, forward-sounding way to designate the leader of a large staff. This trend occurred in the secular marketplace. For example, where organizations used to hire “Senior Architects,” they now employ “Lead Architects.”
As church staffs exploded in size, complexity, and professionalism over the last two decades, the term “Lead Pastor” began to function semantically like word “Chief” does in large businesses with “C-level” employees. So, instead of a singular “Lead Pastor,” churches now have a Lead Teaching Pastor who is in charge of a Lead Worship Pastor who is in charge of multiple paid worship leaders or musicians.
- Lead Worship Pastor
- Lead Site Pastor
- Lead Pastor of Connecting and Equipping
- Lead Pastor of [Location]
Alternatives: Instead of using the word “pastor,” some churches are leaning into the “lead” nomenclature and describing key staff as:
- Operations Team Lead
- Lead Custodian
- Lead Secretary
- Admin Team Leader
- Youth Church Co-Leader
- Kids Team Leader
Senior Pastor - _________ _________
Along the same lines, as the size, complexity, and professionalism of church staffs have increased, churches have applied the Senior Pastor moniker beyond a single individual.
These days, churches are hiring people to serve as the Senior Pastor “of” specific ministries or campuses. Using a hyphen is also a common pattern for these job title constructions.
- Senior Pastor - Congregational Development
- Senior Associate Pastor - Shepherding Ministries
- Senior Associate Pastor - Arts & Administration
- Senior Associate Pastor - [Location]
- Senior Pastor - [Campus Name]
Mix, Match, and Grab Bag
In the end, most of these job titles can be altered to reflect a non-pastoral role—i.e., someone who is not ordained or doesn’t meet the church’s internal criteria for a pastor. The most common way to do this is to substitute director or coordinator for pastor. Finally, churches are mixing and matching these trends to create more complex or nuanced titles such as:
- Lead Pastor of [Location] and Senior Associate
- Lead Senior Pastor
- Senior Pastor, Head of Staff
- Next Steps Pastor
- NextGen Pastor
- Pastoral Coordinator
- Pastoral Apprentice
- Pastoral Intern