The Church: Epic Church (900+ nondenominational)
Location: Palm Coast, FL
The Role: Care & Counseling Lead (Pastor/Director)
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The Aaron Hur Group has partnered with Epic Church of Palm Coast, FL in the search for their new Care & Counseling Lead (Pastor/Director).
The Epic Church story began years before the 2009 official worship gathering launch. Picture it, the early ‘90s, three pastors; one a pastor from Palatka, Florida, with a vision to start a new church in Flagler County after noticing the growing number of people, yet so few churches. The two other pastors trained, equipped and awaiting how God would use their gifts. Fast forward to 1994, those three pastors, Dannie Williams (pastor from Peniel Baptist Church in Palatka, Florida), Billy Wight and John Shepherd came in contact with each other and began to pray about starting a new church in Flagler County. In September of 1995, Palm Coast Community Church (PC3) launched its first worship service. For over a year, people from Peniel Baptist Church came to serve and help get PC3 launched well.
Jump 13 years later into the story, God gives the leadership of PC3 a familiar burden on their hearts to launch a new church to reach out to the many people in the county that are seeking a connection with God but don’t know where to begin. God invited Trent Schake and his family to lead the charge in starting that new church (Trent had been on the PC3 team for nine years as the pastor of small groups)
On September 20, 2009, Epic Church launched its first official worship gathering with 300 people in attendance. Since Epic Church was launched in 2009 the goal has been to provide a safe place for those searching for answers to ask questions and engage God. Everyday, God continues to invite people into this epic story He’s telling, and we’re still trying our best not to DO church, but BE the church in our community.
VISION of EPIC CHURCH
“What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? (Since) God is for us, who can ever be against us?”
~ Romans 8:31
The problem is many people today don’t feel like God is for them. They feel like (if God exists) He is probably against them, mad at them, or disappointed in them. Our community, as is our culture, is looking for a faith that is real. The percentage of the U.S. population that described themselves as “religiously unaffiliated” rose from 17% in 2009 to 26% in 2019, which is at an all-time high. A growing number of people are not connected to any religious faith and are looking for a real, authentic, personal faith. Since the beginning of Epic, we have been defined by who we are—we are a church for people who don’t do church. Whether people believe in what we do or not—no matter their religious background, political opinion, or lifestyle choices—we want Epic to be a safe place for people to come and explore the teachings of Jesus and grow a real relationship with Him. Over the last decade, we have led hundreds of people to make a decision to follow Jesus and are seeing many of them connect with God through our church family
Since Epic started in 2009, we have also been for our community. We asked ourselves if Epic’s doors were ever to close, “Would our community miss us?” The answer to that question is beginning to be “yes” as we’ve served families, children, students, the elderly, addicts, victims of domestic violence, first responders, educators, and others in our county. We have served our community through hundreds of projects with strong local partnerships.
Now a new opportunity is before us in this next decade in Epic’s story. We are at a point where the needs of those who attend and those who reach out to us from the community outweigh the capacity of our current resources, staff, and rented facilities. We believe God is leading us to take even greater steps to impact our community for Christ. We plan to do this through the following three key initiatives: For Our Community, For Our Families, and For the Future.
The HEART of EPIC CHURCH
Mission (Why do we exist?):
To lead people into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ.
Our Message (What do we regularly say?):
God is for you and so are we.
Our Strategy (What makes us different?):
We are a church for people who don’t do church
Our Values (How do we behave?):
The 5G Life (How do we measure our mission?):
The CANDIDATE
The following describes many of the characteristics of the ideal candidate for the CARE & COUNSELING Lead:
At Epic Church, the CARE & COUNSELING Lead will be a visionary, strategic, relational, organizational builder that possesses an entrepreneurial spirit to build a ministry for maximum Kingdom and Community Impact. The right candidate will know how to network with community leaders, corporate sponsors and donors, individual church attendees, and strategic partners and will be responsible for building a Care Network and Counseling Ministry. We want the Care Network to be the central hub for the community so when a person needs help, their first call will be to Epic Church. Then the person would meet with someone in Epic’s Care Network who will provide an initial care plan, direct them to the resources in the area, and follow-up with them.
The other part of this ministry is the Counseling Ministry (Center). This ministry will be built with two aspects: pastoral counseling and professional counseling. We will identify what counseling we can do within Epic and then build a network with partners for more specific specialized counseling.
Reporting Relationships
Supervises: CARE & COUNSELING Coordinator and Volunteer Ministry Leaders and Teams
Relates to: Lead Pastor, Church Staff, Ministry Teams, and the congregation
Key Relationships and Constituencies
The CARE & COUNSELING Lead should focus on and develop several key relationships in their role. These relationships are the most important ones in doing the work of this role, staying healthy in all ways, including spiritually, emotionally and mentally, and developing the ministry further as time progresses.
The CARE & COUNSELING Lead should, first and foremost, cultivate their personal spiritual development and energy in a relationship with God. They should also develop and nurture healthy relationships with:
CHARACTERISTICS
Leader: Models servant leadership, empowers and positions others for growth and wins, and actively builds a culture of Leadership Development. Initiates and effects meaningful change. Participates in generating and accelerating organizational momentum leading to excellent performance. Identifies, develops and empowers leaders and fosters a culture of leadership development. Models servant leadership and collaboration in decision making.
Shepherd: Provides personalized spiritual guidance towards becoming more like Jesus. Identifies where people are spiritually and equips and leads them to take spiritual next steps. Leads people toward increased levels of engagement in our church. Functions as a member of the church’s pastoral staff in providing care, counseling, performing baptisms, weddings, funerals, etc.
Networker: Demonstrates a passion to strategically build relationships with community partners in a variety of ways. Informs and inspires for kingdom growth and impact in all written and spoken media (informally, formally, personally, and publicly). Recognizes and leverages those strategic partnerships and potential donors to make a Kingdom impact within Flagler County.
Strategist: Clearly defines the “end goal” and establishes short and long term strategies that will actualize that end goal. Demonstrates big picture thinking and can clearly articulate the vision and mission of an organization/ministry. Clearly and accurately identifies the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in his/her organization/ministry. Works with the end result in mind, drives for excellence and continually evaluates progress.
EDUCATION
B.A. degree in counseling, nonprofit leadership, biblical studies, ministry, church leadership, or equivalent education is preferred but not required.
We seek someone with at least 3-5 years’ experience building an organization from the ground up and has an entrepreneurial spirit that can lead a staff team in building and growing a groups and serving-based ministry for a church. Significant experience in developing and successfully implementing a COMMUNITY CARE & COUNSELING model is preferred.
EXPERIENCE
The successful candidate will have a strong background in ministry development, team building, discipleship and spiritual formation strategies with proven success in implementing these strategies. Posses a proven track record of leadership, organizational development and effective communication.
They must have strong people skills and a driving passion to reach people far from God and help them grow deeper in their faith. They must embrace the ability to work within a community and promote innovation through collaboration. In addition, the individual will show an ability to connect across generations.
Experience in a medium to large church setting and supervisory experience in a multi-staff setting is preferred. The candidate we are looking for also has a gift of preaching/teaching, with a desire to serve on the teaching team with a rotation of speaking about 3-5 times a year.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Champion
Collaborate
Create
Care
Communicate
This summary of duties represents the major tasks and duties. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities. Therefore, this pastor may perform other related tasks under the direction of the Lead Pastor.
Goals and Expectations
The effective Care & Counseling Lead will achieve the following goals during the first 24 months of work:
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Aaron Hur Group offers the most comprehensive capabilities and deep ministry experience necessary to help you solve the most complex issues of your organization and finding the right staff for your team. We are inspired by the biblical story of Aaron & Hur who supported Moses, the leader of the nation of Israel during one of his most critical leadership challenges. Since opening our doors, God has allowed our team the privilege of partnering with pastors, leaders, churches, and organizations to become healthy and achieve their mission and calling.
