How Church Gets You A Job

I can't overemphasise how true this is. Do you know that the things you do in your church department can get you a job in various sectors of the work industry?

The purpose of this post is to challenge your game a little. It's also to open up your eyes to the opportunities that lie right in the palm of your hands.

I've listed a few departments within the church that give you transferable skills to take to the work industry.

The Pastoral Care Unit

This department refers to Pastors, Fellowship/Cell Leaders and Cell/Fellowship Executives. When carrying out these roles effectively, you can be counted accountable, reliable and responsible. You have to look after people; different types of people. You know the church is for the perfecting of the saints (Ephesians 4:11-12) so people of various cultures, racial backgrounds and mentalities. It can be very challenging. You have to treat everyone fairly, you have a responsibility of carrying everyone along; through The Word, by prayer along with other things.

You have a responsibility of growing a healthy church and also the responsibility of growing the church spiritually and numerically meaning you have to be strategic and creative. All these skills are transferable into managerial roles. You can also consider some sort of teaching profession with these skills. You have transferable skills to even be your own boss, because you oversee everything. So as a leader in the Pastoral Care Unit, you have quite a handful of skills that are very transferable into the work industry.

The Church Administrator

Church administration has a huge impact on the church and the ministry as a whole. If you see an effective and successful church ministry, find out what the admin team are doing *wink*. The church administrator handles the day-to-day administrative operations of the church. As well as carrying out all the administrative work, he or she also manages the church facilities, ensuring the building is maintained properly. There’s so much more to it but these are just a few. In reference to the persona of a church administrator, it’s handled by someone who is willing to make sacrifices for the success of the ministry.

The church administrator also protects the Pastor and works directly with him or her. He or she is also the Pastor’s confidant. You know loose lips have destroyed a lot of churches. So the administrator will see and hear things that are to be kept to him or herself. As a church administrator, you have transferable skills that can take you into administrating related jobs and careers. You can also look into being a Personal Assistant to someone because you’ve got the perfect skill set to do so.

The Technical Team

This department is just as sacred as any other department in the church. They support the Pastor in the delivery of the message, using modern multimedia technology. They have a responsibility to the church pre-service, during service and post-service. Before the service, they set up technical equipment, do regular sound checks and run through the service schedule. During the service, they’re responsible for things like adjusting sound levels as required, in some churches they record the service, be it audio, visual or both.

They’re responsible for following stage and schedule cues and etc, you get the idea. Post-service responsibilities consist of wrapping and packing up of course, reviewing performance and a lot more. With this skill set, whether you’re good at the audio or visual side of things, can be very transferable. you look into anything audio/video related. You could be a freelancer, work at people’s events and even better, be your own boss, managing your own media company.

I think that by now, you’re getting the idea and it’s opening up your mind to the possibilities that lay right the palm of your hands.

To share my personal experience, about 2 months ago, I was applying for a job. You know them ones when you’re job hunting online and you casually apply for 50 jobs with that ‘one-click apply’ option? Yeah that’s what I was doing, having good faith that at least 10 should come back to me.

So I did that one day and just forgot about it. Until one day, I got a call from America offering me a 3 month paid contract to work with youth over the summer. They were in love with my CV and especially the part where I outlined my responsibilities as a counsellor at The Easter Youth Camp with Pastor Chris in South Africa (yeah that’s on my CV!)

I did a phone interview right there and then and said they’d call me back the day after. They called me back an hour later, offered me the position and emailed me a link to properly register and accept the offer. I didn’t accept the offer, I know, I know. The reason for that was that I have targets and goals set for 2017 and this contract wasn’t going to be consistent with what I have planned. It was really hard turning down the contract because I’ve been looking for an opportunity like this for a while, but I also felt it were a distraction and I had to remain focused.

Using this same example, this is to show you that the skills that you acquire within church ministry are not mere, they can take you to very far places in the world; giving you platforms to be an influence and then using that influence for the gospel. There isn’t one job interview I’ve been to where I don’t talk about what I do within church ministry. It impresses my interviewers each and every time, I promise you. Try it sometime, your employers will be impressed. So brush up your CV and add those things you do in church!

Don’t neglect the things you do in church, you’ll never know where they’ll take you.