Faith Church

Faith Church is a multisite church of thousands in Northwest Indiana and about 30 miles from downtown Chicago. They are looking for pastoral residents who will be embedded with the campus pastors.

This will be the seventh and eighth resident that they’ve had in the last couple of years!

Expected Work Hours:
20 - 25 (negotiable)
Expected Monthly Pay:
$1,360 - $1,700 (depending on hours worked)

Below is some Q & A with Rick Riddering, the Director of Leadership Development:

What are your greatest hopes and dreams for the next couple of years for your church?
Faith Church is currently one church with five locations: four in Northwest Indiana and one in the South Suburbs of Chicago. We believe God has planted us in this place to impact a diverse region located 30-45 minutes from downtown Chicago depending on which of the Faith Church campuses a person would be traveling from. To that end, our hope is that more people in our region come to know Christ their Lord and Savior, that they develop Christian disciplines that help them grow in their walk with Christ and understand their calling for serving Him. Our hope is that God will further position Faith Church to have an influence on those things, and we pray that He opens new opportunities for His church to plant new sites or enfold others. We believe that if something is alive, like his church, it should be multiplying. And we utilize our 4Gs to build and measure our ministry efforts, including programs and processes. Those are Gather, Grow, Give and Go. We value gathering as a large group and in small groups. We believe all Christians should be growing in their walk with the Lord no matter how long they’ve been in a relationship with Him. We also teach the idea of giving of our time, talents and treasures as an act of worshipping our Lord. Finally, we believe all of these things to help guide and equip the believer to adhere to and carry out the Great Commandment and Great Commission. We are committed as a church to co-laboring with Christ to transform the world for His name, one relationship at a time.

Why did you choose to do a residency & what are you hopeful will happen through this process?
We are hopeful that a strong residency program will help us fill our leadership pipeline. Additionally, we anticipate that residents will help us broaden our perspectives for ministry and expand our capacity to communicate the Gospel, possibly in new ways we've never tried or by someday leading a new church site for Faith Church.

What is it like to work on staff there?
The staff at Faith Church numbers between 90-100 very talented and creative people. The team collaborates well, despite being in six different locations. Each Wednesday most employees gather at one of our locations for team meetings, planning, staff chapels and meetings, etc., which builds strong camaraderie.

Does your church’s website state the mission, vision, values and key distinctives of your church? Please paste the link: wearefaith.org/what-we-believe

Please describe the current staff structure.
Being that we are one church with five locations, we have one senior pastor and five campus pastors. Our executive team has four members: senior pastor, executive pastor, executive director of operations, and executive director of communication. And our church is governed by a consistory (or board) made up of elders and deacons. Finally, each of our campuses has a group of community care elders and deacons to focus on the needs of each locality. In addition, our staff is positioned to carry out our ministry and administrative work in two ways: through shared Central Services and locally at each campus. This means that such things as general operations, finance, marketing communication, human resources, building maintenance, leadership development, and few other things are administered in a way that the entire church (all campuses) benefit. Likewise, each campus pastor leads their local staff to carry out the mission of the church at each locality.

What qualities does it take to “win” on staff at your church?
Our church is pretty entrepreneurial, meaning we like to try new things. At the same time, we govern ourselves by Biblical truths and values. The staff is creative, collaborative, caring, hard-working and fun-loving. None of us is perfect. We always say that "we strive for excellence, not perfection," because we want to fully do the best we can for our Lord Jesus Christ. We also count on people to use their giftedness to contribute, and we care deeply about people's ongoing spiritual and professional development. To "win" on staff at Faith Church it takes the traits listed above, a willingness to contribute and collaborate using your gifts and talents God has given you, and to always be open to learning and trying new things.

Who will the resident report to? Will there be a different person acting as coach?
The resident will report to a pastor at one of our five locations. They also will work closely with the Director of Leadership Development, who will serve as a coach and guide in many cases. However, the resident will have numerous interactions with other pastors and staff along the way, so it's certain that many people will have "coaching words" of encouragement. But the learning should be rich since we have many campuses and many ministries.

Are there particular assessment tools that you prefer when exploring potential staff people?
Every staff member at Faith Church participates in the Kolbe-A Personality Profile, which is administered upon hiring. We do not utilize assessment tools as part of the interview process, however we’d welcome candidates including their DISC or StrengthsFinders summaries as part of their application. This would be a value-add and certainly is not a requirement for applying.

Are you affiliated with a particular denomination or tribes/association of churches? If so, what websites could one investigate to gain further understanding?
Faith Church is a Christ-focused, Bible-believing Reformed church and a member of the Kingdom Network (kingdomnetworkusa.org), which is a multiplying movement of like-minded churches committed to making disciples, raising up a new generation of leaders and starting new churches. Additionally we are aligned together with other like-minded churches outside the Kingdom Network in what is called the New Thing Network (newthing.org).

What are the key doctrinal and theological issues where alignment is essential?
From our website: wearefaith.org/what-we-believe

In general, what is your church demographic?
Considering NW Indiana and the Chicago Southland, we are located in a fairly diverse part of the country. However right now our primary church demographic is middle class and primarily Caucasian because of the physical locations of our campuses. A couple of our campuses have more racial diversity than others, because of where they are located. However, we want to become more diverse and it is our full intention and goal to become more represented by all races. After all, our region is becoming more diverse each year that passes. Faith Church was planted in 1963 as a Dutch reformed church in South Holland, IL, and we are a multigenerational church where we still have founding members of Faith Church as part of our flock, in addition to their children and grandchildren.

However that demographic now makes up only one-third of our congregation because since moving to Dyer, IN in 2002 we have attracted numerous people from a variety of church and unchurched backgrounds. Praise God!!

Is there more than one site or venue? If so, please describe.
Please see above for an understanding of our sites.

How many conversions has your church had in the past 12 months? (however you define this and whatever you count)
We had 102 public professions of faith in 2021.

What percentage of people are involved in a small group?
A 2019 survey determined that about one-third of Faith Church members and attendees were participating in groups. Our strategic plan and the tactics developed to support it are focused on raising that to more than 50 percent within three years.

What is your church known for in the community?
Faith Church is known as being a good neighbor, who cares very deeply about The Great Commandment and The Great Commission. We are very active in the communities we serve, so we count ourselves as being called to serve in those municipalities. In fact, our strategic plan also is focused on increasing even more the numbers of Faith Church people “serving outside the walls of church.” We are also known as being very invitational, where people are encouraged to explore who we are and what we believe. That means that we are known as being a very friendly and welcoming church, which bodes well for our multi-site strategy.

What are the expected work hours and what does a typical work week look like for this resident?
Depending on the candidate this can be somewhat flexible except for two days in particular: Sundays and Wednesdays. We would expect our residents to work some hours on Sundays since that is when they will be able to meet the most people. Wednesdays are held for staff meetings at our Dyer, IN campus, including the Campus Pastors meeting. We will be somewhat flexible on other hours during the week depending on whether or not a resident has another work schedule outside of Faith Church. Also, we may need residents to be a bit flexible, too, depending upon the work they’ll be doing and meetings they may need to attend in order to complete that work (i.e. campus staff meetings, committee/team meetings, etc.)

What else would you say to a resident considering joining your team?
Faith Church is a loving place for worshipping, working, volunteering, and learning. The church has extensive experience with starting and growing ministries, planting and enfolding churches, and guiding and supporting other congregations looking to learn from our experiences throughout the years. We are highly networked with numerous congregations outside of Faith Church as well as various local, national and international ministry organizations, and we count it as a blessing to learn from our friends as we strive to help them to become better, too. We believe that “we’re better together,” and we consistently strive to align our work with God’s Will for Faith Church. Finally, we’re looking for residents who feel called into multi-site ministry, are gifted collaborators, and believe they have giftedness in leadership, pastoring and teaching/preaching.