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Director of Children’s Ministry / Day School Chaplain

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

Austin, TX

Part-time position, 20-25 hours/week. Reports directly to the Senior Director of Christian Formation (SDCF).

St. Mark’s seeks a new part-time Director of Children’s Ministry and Day School Chaplain to join our children/youth formation ministry team. Effective volunteer and logistics management is key to success in this role, which is to say, we are looking for someone with both administrative skills and people skills! We seek a good team player who will embrace collaboration and flexibility alongside supportive ministry partners, someone who works hard, is open to feedback, and puts ego to the side for the sake of serving our people well together. We want all children at St. Mark’s to be safe, to be loved, and to play their way into relationship with God.

Responsibilities:

Sundays

• Nursery – 8:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. during the program year; 9:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. during the summer. Occasional pop-up for special events / feast days. For crawling babies through 3 year olds.
• Formation Hour – 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. during the program year for pre-K kids through – 5th graders, broken down into four classes: Godly Play 1 (4s – Pre-K); Godly Play 2 (Kinder – 1st grade); Wayfinders (2nd – 3rd grade); and Bridge (4th – 5th graders).
• Children’s Chapel – Offered at the 9 a.m. service (and also at 10 a.m. during the summer) for all children. Children leave after the Gospel lesson and are welcomed back during the Creed (9 a.m.) or during the Peace (10:00 a.m. summer).

Nursery – The Director is responsible to ensure Nursery is staffed adequate to demands at appointed times. The Director is the supervisor for Nursery staff, both paid and volunteer and they will build in regular check-ins to those supervisory relationships. If the Director has performance concerns about a Nursery employee or volunteer, they will bring those concerns to first to the Senior Director of Christian Formation, and then to the Rector.

Formation Hour – The Director is responsible for recruiting, scheduling, training, resourcing, and administering all children’s formation hour programs, under the direction of the SDCF and in alignment with St. Mark’s vision. It is typically the case that the Director would lead either Wayfinders or the Bridge themselves, while managing volunteers to lead the other rooms, but this is also negotiable. Volunteer management is of premium importance here.

Children’s Chapel – The Director leads Children’s Chapel at 9 a.m. service, and is responsible for creating or preparing the content of that time (Children’s homily, singing, prayers). They will recruit necessary volunteers for this as well.

Special 9 a.m. Service Responsibilities – The Director is responsible for doing some special preparation for the 9 a.m. service each week, including arriving early enough to set up the Prayers of the People board, to greet the Ushers (“Family of the Day”), and to meet (and train) our Jr. Acolytes. (*The Director only helps with the 9 a.m. acolytes, not the 11:15 ones.)

Seasonal Activities – The Director coordinates and executes pop-up family and children’s ministry programs appropriate to changing liturgical seasons, such as Advent wreath-decorating, Christmas pageant, Easter Egg Hunt, etc.

Weekdays

Day School Chapel – Plan and lead all school chapel services on Wednesday mornings for St. Mark’s Episcopal Day School in coordination with the Rector. Maintain a positive working relationship with Day School leadership and be a visible presence with school families.

Day School Godly Play – Teach one session of Godly Play per week to Pre-K students at St. Mark’s Episcopal Day School.

VBS – Plan and execute a one-week VBS each summer.

Relational work – Especially in the first 6-12 months of the role, the Director is expected to spend time during the week getting to know and building relational capital with parents and families of the St. Mark’s community. This is an invaluable but hard to measure part of the job that not only helps give the Director a good read on what the needs and expectations of our community are, but also sows seeds for cultivating a big and ever-evolving, constantly-rotating team of volunteers.