Community Pastor

Job Title: Community Pastor

Responsible to: Senior Pastor

Liaises with: Saint Paul’s staff and congregation, external organisations, community and council bodies, Café team, and the public.

Work Location: Saint Paul’s Hammersmith

Saint Paul’s is a dynamic church at the centre of our capital city, London. We have a vision to Encounter God and Awaken the City. Our desire is to become a white-hot centre of faith, where people can meet with God and learn what it means to be empowered by His Spirit in their everyday lives. We inspire our congregation to see God’s Kingdon come here on earth as it is in heaven, wherever He has called them to live, work and play their part in awakening our city with the good news of Jesus. If we have any particular emphasis after being a community who honour and seek God’s presence, it’s to empower the emerging generation as we pass on the baton of faith and raise up disciples who will lead and influence in every sphere of society.

The successful candidate will approach the role of Community Pastor with a clear passion and understanding of the theory of change that sits behind our vision. We wholeheartedly believe that as people encounter God, they will then be transformed and able to awaken the city through the power of His Spirit at work in them. Therefore, we intend for all our City Transformation work to help give people access to an encounter with God. This will happen in several ways, and most commonly we expect that the love, kindness and grace demonstrated in and through our various initiatives will provoke an interest in encountering God whatever background or context a person is coming from.

Overall Purpose of Role

In your role as Community Pastor, you will lead, innovate, and add momentum and direction to all of our local Community Outreach work at Saint Paul’s Hammersmith. You will strategically represent the church with external stakeholders, help to create key partnerships within the community, whilst building and empowering a dynamic and vibrant volunteer culture within the Saint Paul’s congregation.

You will oversee our Community Café and lead on all our community outreach programmes across Hammersmith, including our Community Hub, Café Concert and Love Christmas Project.

We are looking for someone with a proven track record in building volunteer teams, supporting key leaders and the ability to develop collaborative relationships with external organisations, charities and grant making bodies. You will enjoy the challenge and opportunity of a fast-paced environment, where teamwork is essential but where individual skills and distributed leadership are also required.

You will also be an ambassador for Love Your Neighbour (LYN) which is part of a national movement of churches collaborating in local communities, alongside people of all faiths and none to support individuals and families in need. This will involve being part of the LYN Hub Accelerator Programme, to help Saint Paul’s refine our vision and impact in this area of social transformation.

Key Responsibilities

• Effective coordination of our City Transformation ministry.
• Ensuring that our projects are meeting the needs of our community.
• Reaching out to those in crisis to help people access places of care, both inside and outside of Saint Paul’s, and helping people access programmes that address the root cause of crisis.
• Co-ordinating and implementing our vision to become a Love Your Neighbour hub that makes a long-term impact through social transformation and helping to implement our 5-year strategy for Social Transformation.
• Oversight of our Saint Paul’s Community Café and vision and strategy on scaling the café.
• Acting as an ambassador for and developing relationships with our partner charities, Spear and Crosslight to ensure that their ministries are well supported and integrated into the life of Saint Paul’s.
• With the support of our Operations Manager and using existing Love Your Neighbour impact measurement systems, collecting data and carrying out regular impact measurement to create reports for church leadership, PCC and funding partners.
• Key Lead and point person for Adult Safeguarding and sitting on the Saint Paul’s Safeguarding Team.
• Termly line-management and connection with our volunteer chaplains, chaplain to St Vincents Care Home, and chaplain to St Paul’s Primary School.
• Recruiting, training, supporting, and investing in a volunteer team to enable wide participation in our City Transformation ministry.
• Networking and building relationships with charitable organisations, churches, public sector organisations and other key stakeholders.
• Maximising opportunities for all ministry areas within the church to be involved in social transformation ministry.
• Responsibility for identifying and following through with grant applications and reporting.

You will also oversee the existing social action projects run by Saint Paul’s, namely;

Cafe Concerts

Our monthly Cafe Concerts were established in the Spring of 2023, aimed at creating a uniquely multi-generational open door for the local community to enjoy a morning of world-class music, coffee, cake, and a warm welcome. We now regularly host between 60-70 people, including local asylum seekers, residents from St Vincents care home, all alongside our growing Stay and Play community of Mums and Toddlers who join the Cafe Concert.

Community Hub

The Community Hub was created in 2023 to support those who are experiencing loneliness. There is a hot meal provided, as well as kids activities and lots of space for conversation. There have been seven Community Hubs in 2023, with over 500 guests (including many asylum seekers based in local hotels) and a 30-person volunteer team. We have supported in a variety of ways, including writing references, providing clothes and most importantly, forming friendships with people. 

Love Christmas

In December 2023, we partnered with Love Christmas to pack and deliver more than 720 Bags of Kindness to our local community, with the help of 30 volunteers. The combination of donations raised from within our congregation, and match funding from Love Your Neighbour enabled us to show practical love and care to some of the most vulnerable in our local area. You will be responsible for overseeing and developing this project.

You will also helping to establish new initiatives as the need arises, in collaboration with the Senior Team. This might include a breakfast club for children at our local school, Kids Matter, and Recovery Groups/ courses that will have a missional outworking and community focus.

Essential Skills, Knowledge and Experience

You will be flexible and able to work dynamically to respond to needs as they arise whilst keeping a strategic eye on upcoming opportunities and challenges. You will use your experience in social action to review the needs of your community and offer tailor-made services in response to them, it will involve partnering with others in the community and being entrepreneurial and forward thinking in how to tackle the issue of poverty and local need.

• Active engagement in Saint Paul’s Hammersmith church life/community.
• Excellent communication skills both written and oral
• Understanding of and alignment with the Saint Paul’s vision and the associated ministries.
• The ability to develop positive and professional relationships – internally and with third parties.
• Personal maturity, wisdom, and discretion – acts with integrity and models Christ-like values.
• Flexible, adaptable, ‘can do’ attitude, offers solutions to problems.
• Customer-facing skills, dealing confidently with a diverse range of clients and visitors.
• Ability to seek clarification, adapt approach to resolve (or avoid) conflict and manage complaints and/or challenging requests.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Ability to multi-task and prioritise using excellent time-management skills.
• Intermediate skills in IT and MS Office suite, database applications, calendar management etc. 
• Active listening skills and ability to understand employee needs in a sensitive manner.

Working Requirements

• Proof of right to work in the UK according to UK Legislation.
• Days of work: 35 hours per week, Sunday – Thursday, with some occasional evening and Saturday working as required (TOIL given).
• Work hours: 9:30 am – 5:30 pm with a one-hour unpaid lunch break. Flexible working on Sundays to accommodate various services.

Key church services and events

• Key church events: Annual Parochial Church Meeting, Church Weekend, and some evening events.
• Easter and Christmas services.
• Staff events: Staff retreat (typically 1 week in January)
• Attendance at Tuesday morning staff meeting

Package

• Annual salary of £28k – £32k depending on experience.
• 25 days of annual leave plus bank holidays
• Employer pension contribution
• Annual staff retreat at an offsite location.

• Important note:  Many roles require candidates to be DBS checked (Disclosure and Barring Service Certificate) up to the appropriate level as a condition of employment.