Worship Experience Pastor

Hope Church•Richmond, VA

11d•$85,000 - $130,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Worship Experience Pastor provides strategic, pastoral, and organizational leadership for all worship and production environments at HOPE Church. This role exists to ensure that every gathered worship experience—whether in person or online—helps people engage meaningfully with the Gospel in ways that are clear, compelling, distraction-free, and aligned with HOPE’s mission, vision, and values. Through leadership of the Worship and Production teams, the Worship Experience Pastor plays a key role in advancing HOPE’s strategic priorities to Reach Families, Grow Leaders, Plant Churches, and Go Far and Wide. While this role is primarily focused on strategic leadership, team development, and worship experience oversight, the Worship Experience Pastor must also possess the ability to lead worship from the platform with theological depth, musical competence, and pastoral presence, stepping into platform leadership as needed to support the ministry and model worship leadership for the team. This leader helps Reach Families by cultivating worship environments that are welcoming, engaging, and spiritually impactful for both believers and those exploring faith. They help Grow Leaders by developing staff, volunteers, residents, and emerging leaders within worship and production ministries. They help Plant Churches by building scalable systems, healthy team culture, and reproducible worship models that can support future ministry expansion. They help HOPE Go Far and Wide by strengthening digital and livestream experiences that extend the reach of the Gospel beyond HOPE’s physical campuses. The Worship Experience Pastor oversees the Worship Lead Pastor and the Production Lead, ensuring strong alignment, healthy collaboration, and a shared purpose across the two departments. This leader is responsible for cultivating a culture of spiritual depth, creative excellence, technical reliability, and servant-hearted leadership, while ensuring that every worship experience reflects the heart of Jesus and advances HOPE’s mission to offer experiences, relationships, and places where people can find life and purpose through Jesus Christ.

Requirements

Active and growing personal relationship with Jesus Christ
Strong alignment with HOPE’s mission, vision, values, and theological convictions, including affirmation of EPC Essentials of Faith
Minimum bachelor’s degree in worship leadership, theology, music, production, leadership, or related field preferred
Significant experience leading complex worship, production, or creative ministries in a large church or similarly complex environment
Demonstrated ability to lead worship vocally and instrumentally from the platform in a congregational setting
Proven experience leading and developing high-capacity leaders and teams
Strong strategic thinking, organizational leadership, and systems-building ability
Strong communication, relational, and coaching skills
Working knowledge of modern worship and production systems, platforms, and workflows
Demonstrated ability to balance pastoral sensitivity, creative vision, and operational execution

Responsibilities

Develop and champion a compelling vision for worship experiences across all HOPE environments, including worship services, special events, livestream experiences, and ministry gatherings
Partner closely with the Ministries Director and other senior ministry leaders to ensure worship environments support HOPE’s mission, vision, values, and long-term strategic direction
Shape systems, structures, and rhythms that enable sustainable excellence as HOPE grows
Ensure worship and production strategy remains scalable, proactive, and aligned with future ministry expansion
Provide direct supervision, coaching, support, and accountability for: Worship Lead Pastor, Production Lead
Lead regular 1:1 meetings, goal-setting, and performance development conversations
Foster healthy collaboration between Worship, Production, Communications, Family Ministries, and Ministry Experience
Build a culture of trust, humility, excellence, ownership, and spiritual maturity
Create and lead intentional gatherings, development opportunities, and retreats that build community, cast vision, deepen spiritual formation, and strengthen team culture across Worship and Production
Support succession planning, leadership development, and staff growth across both departments
Oversee the spiritual, creative, and practical design of HOPE’s worship environments while helping shape and model a compelling culture of worship both on and off the platform
Ensure services are thoughtfully planned and executed with theological depth, musical excellence, and strong congregational engagement
Partner with the Worship Lead Pastor on worship philosophy, service flow, song strategy, creative planning, and volunteer development
Help maintain consistency and alignment across all worship venues and ministry environments
Oversee the strategy, systems, and standards for production across all HOPE environments
Ensure excellence in audio, video, lighting, livestreaming, and digital production
Partner with the Production Lead to improve workflows, systems, and technical reliability
Guide planning for future equipment
Serve as a key bridge between worship/production and other ministry departments
Help translate ministry vision into effective worship and production execution
Partner with ministry leaders to support Sundays, major events, seasonal services, and special initiatives
Partner closely with the Communications Director to ensure worship experiences and churchwide communications are creatively aligned, mutually reinforcing, and consistently support HOPE’s messaging and ministry priorities
Ensure ministry requests are prioritized and supported through clear communication and planning processes
Champion healthy volunteer cultures across worship and production teams
Ensure strong systems for volunteer recruitment, onboarding, scheduling, training, and care
Support leaders in creating environments where volunteers feel spiritually encouraged, equipped, and valued
Foster leadership pipelines that develop future worship and production leaders
Oversee departmental budgets related to worship and production
Help prioritize spending, equipment purchases, staffing needs, and capital improvements
Ensure wise stewardship of resources while supporting ministry effectiveness and growth
Participate in staff-wide initiatives, leadership gatherings, and church-wide ministry efforts
Serve as a pastoral leader within the broader HOPE staff culture