Staff Culture
Shades’ staff culture is marked by humility, service, and collaboration. Leaders at every level embody a culture where every person is valued and honored: executives thank interns and pastors invest personally in residents.
This is a team that values:
- Humility: Leaders daily posture themselves at the foot of the Cross.
- Equipping: Empowering ministries and volunteers with tools and clarity.
- Collaboration: Building trust across departments with open communication.
- Mission Alignment: Ensuring communications always connect back to Living Sent.
- Joyful Community: Genuinely enjoying one another, bringing fun and laughter into the work of ministry.
Key Responsibilities
- Partner with senior leadership to align messaging with the church’s mission and vision.
- Lead and develop the Communications Team (design, video, social, web) with vision, structure, and pastoral care.
- Create and implement tools, systems, and tiered communication systems that clarify what gets communicated where, ensuring consistency across platforms.
- Build and steward a comprehensive brand guide, equipping ministries to communicate effectively while protecting the church’s voice.
- Champion storytelling that reflects Shades’ Gospel mission, mobilizing the congregation, highlighting next gen, City Ministry, etc., and celebrating transformed lives.
- Oversee web, social media, print, and video presence, ensuring a cohesive and audience-specific experience.
- Serve as “air traffic coordinator” for communications, helping ministries plan ahead, prioritize, and integrate.
Key Qualifications
- Strategic Implementation: Leans in with curiosity to understand where God is leading the church and builds systems that align communications and storytelling with that vision.
- Team Shepherding: Experience developing young leaders, providing coaching, feedback, and protection.
- Storytelling Expertise: Skilled in writing and coaching content that reflects the Gospel with clarity and authenticity.
- Digital Fluency: Competence in social, web, video, email, and analytics; ability to use data to guide decisions.
- Relational Credibility: A trusted presence who can bridge perspectives between senior leaders and ministries.
- Required Experience & Expertise:
- 5–10 years of professional experience in communications, marketing, or creative leadership, Ideally in a church with a collaborative team environment.
- Demonstrated success leading teams and managing complex projects.
- Digital marketing fluency: Proficiency in web, social media, email marketing, analytics, and content strategy; comfortable using data to guide decisions.
- Strong writing, editing, and storytelling skills; Able to write and coach others to write compelling, clear content that reflects the tone and theology of a church like Shades.
Challenges You’ll Face
- Simplifying a complex environment with multiple ministries and voices.
- Leading the renovation of a website that is currently cumbersome and difficult to navigate.
- Helping ministries trust and engage communications earlier in their planning.
Opportunities Ahead
- Build a proactive communications calendar and system that empowers ministry planning.
- Mobilize the congregation as storytellers and communicators of the mission.
- Create a cohesive brand identity that spans generations and platforms.
First Year Wins
- A clear, tiered communication structure is implemented and embraced by ministries.
- Website is redesigned into a user-friendly, audience-specific hub for next steps.
- Staff are equipped with brand guidelines, templates, and training to own their communications.
- Compelling stories of life change and mission are regularly shared across platforms.
- Communications team is thriving under healthy leadership, with clarity of roles, rhythms, and creative freedom.