This is an exciting role for a mature Christian to develop musical worship within a diverse church. It would suit a versatile musician with strong team skills, emotional intelligence, and a passionate vision for the power of musical worship to ignite faith in Jesus. Because this is a part-time role, in an arts context, we anticipate ongoing agreed flexibility over working patterns.

There is a Genuine Occupational Requirement (GOR) that the post-holder is a practising Christian. Schedule 9 of the Equality Act 2010 applies.

To lead and encourage the congregations and our other groups to worship God and encourage each other by the use of music, played and sung to a good standard.

At St James, we have morning and evening services. The morning has a mixture of contemporary, middle of the road and more traditional hymns. The Gathering, our evening service, has a wholly contemporary feel. This role leads our contemporary and middle-of-the-road styles, but takes responsibility for working with those providing more traditional elements.

The following is a current, but not exhaustive, list of areas that the job holder will have direct responsibility for championing, recruiting, and developing.

• Set the vision for our sung worship on Sundays, paying particular attention to the lyrics
• Lead the worship regularly at services, and ensure that there is always a leader assigned to every service
• Take a lead in providing for a strong contemporary presence at the major festivals of Christmas (principally at Contemporary Carols, and Kids service) and Easter
• Oversee and collaborate with members of staff or volunteers to produce a healthy range of contemporary (e.g., Hillsong, Sovereign Grace Music, Worship Central, Passion, Housefires, Maverick City, and Elevation Worship), and middle-of-the-road (e.g., Townend & Getty, Graham Kendrick) songs, and allow for popular hymn music on Sunday mornings and other relevant occasions
• Continue to develop the contemporary feel of the evening service, The Gathering
• Discover and arrange suitable new songs for us to sing
• Recruit musicians and worship leaders from within the congregations
• Host team meetings for the musicians to encourage a biblical vision for worship
• Participate in service planning meetings (currently online on Tuesdays), draw up agreed service orders, and communicate the outcomes to worship leader assigned to service. Our platform for service rotas is Planning Centre
• Oversee the care and maintenance of musical equipment in the church (excluding the organs

You will have:

• An allocated budget to spend, in order to develop our ministries
• An office at the church, with secure storage for instruments
• The support of regular Heads of Ministry Meetings and other relevant pastoral meetings
• Regular time with your line manager, the Vicar
• Opportunities for further training and development

The closing date for applications is Friday 9 September 2022.

Interview and a jam session with the band will provisionally be on Sunday 18 September 2022.

For more information, please email gabrielle.moris@st-james.org.uk.