Senior Pastor Job Profile
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February 2021 Caller Article
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MEET PASTOR KYLE JACKSON.
Pastor Kyle Jackson is a passionate and enthusiastic pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He has 26 years of ministry experience in mostly large church settings. With strong experience in student ministry, congregational care, team leadership, and development, he is an excellent preacher and communicator. He loves helping people discover their God-given talents and thrives in building a collaborative team.
Important to Know about Pastor Kyle
Pastor Kyle’s “heart rate kept going up” as he read the job profile for Mount Calvary’s Senior Pastor position. He had considered other positions but Mount Calvary’s “resonated” and immediately felt like a strong fit. He shared with the call committee that he feels like he is running towards a spirit-filled opportunity and cannot wait to see what God is doing at Mount Calvary!
Pastor Kyle is energetic, enthusiastic, relational, and passionate about what God is doing. He is a direct communicator with strong collaboration skills. He enjoys collaborating with a talented staff within a multi-pastor environment and within large churches. The call committee consistently noticed his strong leadership skills with fantastic listening and communication skills. When compared to the congregational profile we were looking for, Pastor Kyle was a clear match.
BRIDGING THE TRANSITION.
Pastor Dave’s gift of flexibility provides a time of overlap where Mount Calvary will have two Senior Pastors working together to bridge the transition from one to another. With this approach, we benefit from the collaboration of Pastor Dave and the new Senior Pastor on foundational ministries and the history and culture of our congregation. At the same time, we are excited and look forward to encouraging our new pastor’s vision for the future.
Many churches our size have moved to this overlap-succession model to create continuity while looking to the future. We will look for our next Senior Pastor to be just as inspired as all of us to make Mount Calvary a welcoming, inclusive, open and affirming, loving, service-oriented place to call church home. Pastor Dave has done this for forty years and he’s excited about shepherding this process and a new leader to success.
OUR CALL COMMITTEE.
LORI MCDOUGAL
Co-Chair
MATT TOBIN
Co-Chair
GAYE GUYTON
Chaplain
MATT BUCKA
Communications
SCOTT RILE
TRINA VOLBRECHT
MARK ABELSEN
SUSAN QUINN
MOLLY STERLING
Deciding on the Top Candidate – A message from the Call Committee
Starting with the nudging of Pastor Dave and between the Transition Team, HR Team, Council, Staff and Congregation, we have been preparing for a senior pastor transition since 2015 … six years of preparation!
In January of this year
- The Call committee was formed
- The Call Committee was tasked with picking up where HR and Transition team left off
- It was very apparent that a lot of work went into preparing for this call
- The Call Committee felt well-equipped to do a great job
We determined that hiring an Independent Recruiter was important to ensure we contacted the best candidates for Mount Calvary.
- We interviewed three recruiters and selected Theresa Michel
- Theresa took time to go through a lengthy process of understanding exactly what we were looking for in our new senior
- She conducted small group interviews (22 members of congregation, everyone on call committee, and staff leaders)
- Theresa helped draft the job profile, which we all reviewed and approved at council
- She understood exactly what we wanted in a senior pastor
February
- Ramped up Launched by Love capital campaign to help fund the transition plan
- Conducted three town hall meetings to share, answer questions and solicit feedback
- Recruiting began – by the end of February, Theresa had reached out to more than 95 candidates
March
- Call committee selected six candidates to go through a first-round interview process
- For interviews, we built an evaluation form separated into two sections: qualitative and preaching. All call committee members listened to more than two sermons for each of the candidates.
- Led by Susan Quinn and Theresa Michel, we came up with an interview process and carefully crafted interview questions
- Evaluation form and interview questions based on work of the Transition Team, HR team, council and feedback from the church.
- First round interviews consisted of two interviews per candidate via Zoom
April
- Launched by Love campaign raises over $225,000!
- We interviewed five pastors two times. Total of 10 interviews.
- Theresa presented an additional five candidates to the committee
- Three more candidates were selected for first-round interviews
May
- Finished first-round interviews (Eight total candidates)
- Top three met with Pastor Dave and Trina separately to discuss Pastor Dave’s retirement and answer questions regarding the inner workings of the church.
- After confirming all three were still interested, we moved to second-round interviews with Call Committee members
- Questions were personalized for each candidate and interviews were in-person
- Once again, each candidate was interviewed twice.
June
- Call committee gathered in-person to deliberate on the top three
- Top two were identified
- Professional assessment was completed on the top two (leadership/personality traits)
- Reached consensus on the top candidate
Our Recommendation
We have prepared for this moment for the last six years. Our recruiter contacted over 200 candidates and met with about 20 she felt fit the profile. We selected eight candidates for the committee to interview and conducted 28 interviews. Our top candidate was interviewed seven times and went through a professional assessment.
In conclusion, we can confidently say that we did our due diligence. Throughout the process, we received great feedback that Mount Calvary appeared to be well organized, the job profile was very inspiring, and Mount Calvary has a great reputation. We met a lot of fantastic candidates. However, through everything one candidate continued to stand out and the Call Committee is enthusiastically recommending to Council that we hire Pastor Kyle Jackson as our new Senior Pastor.
FOLLOW THE TRANSITION.
THE WHY.
People of Mount Calvary have followed God’s lead for over 90 years. Since the beginning grace, love, hospitality, inclusion, and service have been part of who we are and what God calls us to offer our community and the world. Our leader, Pastor Dave Olson, has been our conductor on the journey, empowering people to hear God’s word in scripture and in life, inspiring folks to follow their passions and to use their gifts for present needs and the next generation.
OUR LEGACY.
For 40 years Pastor Dave has dedicated himself to leading our congregation, and together we’ve built on our strong pillars and faithful foundation. What will the coming years look like for us? Let’s embrace our future with enthusiasm! We’ll need all our prayers, energy and resources to be our best. Join us in launching a legacy that shows we opened our hands to give what we could for our longtime mission to make, build up, and send out disciples of Jesus Christ.
CONVERSATIONS WITH DAVE.
WHAT WE’LL DO.
OUR GIFTS.
Shared gifts grow in their significance. Our combined blessings increase exponentially and extend beyond our walls. Combining our gifts, we are able to meet compelling needs and serve our neighbors in unexpected ways. We can do so much more when we do it together!
OUR GOAL.
Over the next year, we hope to raise $350,000 in gifts to provide for leadership transition, an executive search firm, technology upgrades, and critical partner support. These dollars will allow us to successfully position ourselves for a seamless transition. We’re proud of our legacy with Pastor Dave, and we’re excited about all the possibilities in our future. Please help us by supporting a thorough plan for growth. We believe this plan is the best way to move us gracefully forward.
OUR CHURCH.
Church is where the faith we hold dear unites us. It’s here that we invest in other people’s tomorrows as young people grow in faith and human needs are met in our community. In this holy space we inspire people to live in ways that benefit the world. We get to be a part of something greater than ourselves.
HOW MANY PLEDGES?
We want everyone to be all in! This infinity thermometer will grow as folks fill out their pledge forms. If 100 families pledge $1 a week, 80 families pledge $20 a week, 50 families pledge $50 a week, 40 families pledge $1,000 a year, 10 families pledge $5,000 a year, and 5 families pledge $10,000 or more a year, we reach our goal. Join us!
HOW DO WE GET THERE
100
Families @ $5 a week
80
Families @ $20 a week
40
Families @ $50 a week
40
Families @ $1,000 a year
10
Families @ $5,000 a year
