May 1998 – January 2004: Associate Pastor, Bellaire United Methodist Church, Bellaire, TX: Responsible for coordinating pastoral care for a 2000 member church. As part of a pastoral staff, I shared preaching, worship planning and missions/evangelism tasks. Preached weekly at an intergenerational, mid week, family worship service. Create, and manage specific ministry program areas of the total annual operating budget of $1.1M. Work with the Senior Pastor to recruit volunteers, and provide spiritual formation for an active community of upper class corporate executives, engineers, lawyers, and retirees. Support the vision of the leadership team as directed by the Senior Pastor.
January 2004 – June 2008: Pastor, First United Methodist Church, Brazoria, TX: Responsible for leading the worship, pastoral care and strategy of a 250 member church. Act as primary full time staff and supervise one part time administrative assistant. Create, manage and fundraise support for an annual operating budget of $120K. Recruit volunteers, and provide pastoral care and spiritual formation for an active community of middle class small business owners, and retirees. Nurture historic congregation into new outreach and risk taking mission. During tenure led congregation to increase average worship attendance from approximately 63–90 (+30%), raised total annual giving from $110K to $124K (+11%), increased membership from 241 to 268 during my tenure.
June 2008 – June 2012: Pastor, First United Methodist Church, Port Neches, TX: Responsible for leading the worship, pastoral care and strategy of a 400 member church. Act as onsite supervisor for a staff of five paid professionals (3 full time). Create, manage and fundraise support for an annual operating budget of $400K. Recruit volunteers, charter ministry teams and provide pastoral care and spiritual formation for an active community of middle class educators, refinery operators, and retirees. Encourage best practices and outreach to the community. During tenure led congregation to increase average worship attendance from approximately 176–200 (+25%), raised total annual giving from $409K to $473K (+13.5%), and averaged 20 new members a year.(Membership numbers fell from 755 to 414 due to an audit of membership roll during first year.)
June 2012 – Present: Senior Pastor, Chapelwood United Methodist Church, Lake Jackson, TX: Responsible for leading the worship, pastoral care, and strategic planning of an 800 member church. Act as onsite supervisor for a staff of ten paid professionals (7 full time). Create, manage and fundraise support for an annual operating budget of $850K. Recruit volunteers, charter ministry teams and provide pastoral care and spiritual formation for an active community of middle to upper class engineers, artists and educators. Supervise and manage the leadership team to implement mission, vision and values.
Implemented a strategic plan that aligned budget and structure with mission, vision and values which included developing and having key leaders adopt a three year Vision Statement with SMART goals, as well as re-wrote most staff job descriptions, formalized and documented church processes into stated policies, and re-wrote employee policy manual.
During tenure led congregation to increase average worship attendance from 220 to 300 (+26%), raised total annual giving from $546K to $731K (+28%), and increased membership from 781to 813 during my tenure.(First year total membership listed in journal as 880. The 781 here represents the total membership number following an audit of the rolls.) And added two new full time, ordained staff positions.