Communications Director

Hope Church•Richmond, VA

24d•Onsite

About The Position

The Communications Director provides strategic leadership, vision, and oversight for all communications, branding, content, storytelling, and promotional efforts at HOPE Church. This role ensures that HOPE communicates the Gospel with clarity, creativity, excellence, and consistency across all platforms and audiences. The Communications Director plays a key role in advancing HOPE’s strategic priorities to Reach Families, Grow Leaders, Plant Churches, and Go Far and Wide. Through compelling storytelling, strategic messaging, and creative content, this role helps HOPE reach people who are exploring faith, strengthen engagement within the church, build scalable communication systems for future growth, and extend the Gospel beyond HOPE’s physical campuses through digital media. This leader is responsible for moving the Communications team from a primarily reactive support function to a proactive ministry-driving team that helps shape the narrative of what God is doing at HOPE. Rather than simply promoting upcoming events or recapping past ministry activity, the Communications Director will help create and distribute meaningful content rooted in the pastoral vision of HOPE—content that informs, inspires, disciples, and invites people into deeper life in Christ. This role develops team strategy, clarifies priorities, builds healthy workflows, and cultivates a culture of creativity, collaboration, spiritual maturity, and executional excellence.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in communications, marketing, journalism, public relations, media, or related field preferred
Minimum 7 years of progressively responsible communications, marketing, brand, or media leadership experience
Minimum 3 years leading creative or communications teams
Church, ministry, nonprofit, or mission-driven organizational experience strongly preferred
Mature and growing relationship with Jesus Christ
Strong alignment with HOPE’s mission, vision, values, and theological convictions
Exceptional strategic thinking and communication instincts
Strong storytelling ability across written, visual, and digital mediums
Proven ability to lead high-capacity creative teams
Excellent editorial judgment and brand sensitivity
Strong project management and prioritization skills
High emotional intelligence and relational leadership
Ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced ministry environment
Familiarity with content strategy, social media, analytics, SEO, and digital marketing
Working knowledge of creative tools and workflows (Adobe Creative Suite, Canva, project management systems, CMS platforms)

Responsibilities

Develop and lead a comprehensive communications strategy aligned with HOPE’s mission, vision, values, and pastoral direction
Translate pastoral vision, teaching themes, ministry priorities, and organizational goals into proactive communications initiatives
Build annual, quarterly, and seasonal content strategies that support spiritual formation, engagement, and outreach
Ensure communications efforts move beyond announcements and promotion to become a meaningful ministry tool for discipleship and Gospel engagement
Identify opportunities to proactively tell stories of transformation, leadership development, generosity, outreach, and church impact
Provide direct supervision, coaching, support, and accountability for: Communications Project Manager, Creative Specialist, Videographer + Content Creator
Lead regular planning meetings, 1:1s, performance development, and project prioritization
Develop team systems, workflows, and production rhythms that improve clarity, focus, and execution
Build a healthy team culture marked by trust, ownership, collaboration, creativity, and servant leadership
Create gatherings, retreats, and development opportunities that build community, cast vision, strengthen culture, and foster spiritual growth within the team
Lead the creation of compelling written, visual, video, and digital content across all communication channels
Establish content pillars and editorial rhythms that proactively communicate HOPE’s message year-round
Ensure content reflects strong theological clarity, emotional resonance, and creative excellence
Oversee long-form and short-form storytelling content, including: testimonies, HOPE Stories, sermon-based content, ministry impact stories, campaign messaging, social content
Help shape narratives that highlight life change and invite engagement with Jesus
Oversee promotional strategy for sermon series, ministry initiatives, churchwide events, campaigns, and seasonal experiences
Build systems to intake, prioritize, evaluate, and schedule promotional requests across ministries
Ensure promotional efforts are strategic, focused, and aligned with organizational priorities
Manage team capacity by focusing on projects with the largest and deepest impact
Serve as steward of HOPE’s brand, voice, tone, and visual identity
Ensure excellence and consistency across all communication channels, including: web, social media, video, print, signage, email, app, graphic design
Maintain quality control across all public-facing communications for clarity, grammar, theology, design, and brand consistency
Lead creative direction for major campaigns, series, and churchwide initiatives
Oversee strategy for HOPE’s website, mobile app, email communication, and digital engagement platforms
Ensure HOPE maintains an effective and modern digital presence with strong usability, SEO, and user experience
Evaluate digital engagement data and use analytics to refine communication strategies
Identify emerging digital trends and technologies that may improve reach and effectiveness
Partner closely with the Senior Pastor, Managing Director, ministry leaders, and department heads to understand ministry priorities and communication needs
Collaborate with the Worship Experience Pastor to ensure worship experiences and communications are creatively aligned and mutually reinforcing
Help ministry leaders think strategically about audience, message, timing, and communication effectiveness
Serve as a trusted strategic partner in shaping how ministry initiatives are presented to internal and external audiences
Lead annual communications budget planning and resource allocation
Manage team budgets, contractors, vendors, freelancers, and external creative resources
Ensure wise stewardship of financial and creative resources while maintaining high standards of excellence
Participate in staff-wide initiatives, leadership gatherings, and church-wide ministry efforts
Perform other duties as assigned in support of HOPE’s mission and ministry needs