Spencerville Lead Pastor

Pastoral Leader Search

Objective

Located in Northwestern Ohio, Spencerville Church of the Nazarene is searching for pastoral candidates feeling called to serve as a senior leader / lead pastor / missionary presence within a small, rural community environment.

All interested candidates please email Andy Monnin, District Superintendent for the Northwestern Ohio District Church of the Nazarene, at andy.monnin@nwoteam.church

Understanding the Context

Spencerville is a small and charming town that embodies a cozy, close-knit community spirit, nestled in Allen County’s rural heartland. While Spencerville’s immediate population is just over 2,000, over 50,000 people live within a 10-mile radius of the church. Their members come predominantly from Spencerville and the surrounding smaller communities, including Lima and Delphos.

Spencerville exudes the warmth and hospitality often found in Midwest small towns, where familiar faces greet each other at local shops and community events bring neighbors together. At the center of town, you’ll find historic storefronts, local eateries, and family-owned businesses that thrive on friendly connections with regulars and newcomers alike.

Spencerville is known for its impressive canal system—part of the Miami and Erie Canal—that served as an economic artery in the past and now adds to the town’s scenic charm.

Living in Spencerville requires leaders/pastors who can embrace a close-knit, relational mindset, but in an increasingly post-Christian faith environment. Pastoring this community means stepping in with a missionary mindset. It requires high relational capacity, generosity, hospitality, and keen capacity for contextual theology.

One must be able to articulate the Gospel in a contextualized way, cognizant of cultural barriers and contextual resistance.

The Church

Spencerville Church of the Nazarene has a weekend attendance of almost 70 on average, with even more attending online each week.

Their worship space seats 142 people in individual chairs, and they have a multi-purpose Family Life Center for gatherings and events of all types.

The church is reaching the next generation through a Wednesday night program that brings in an average of 29 children each week. 74 different children have come at least once so the reach is extensive.

They are a warm, hospitable, faithful congregation who have had a rich history of faithful support of the mission of the Church of the Nazarene and a lineage of generosity and global missions.

They understand that the church will grow and become missionally effective as it seeks to reach the local neighborhoods many already know surrounding the church. They are leaning into being missional and are seeing people say yes to Jesus – they have baptized 7 people over the last year!

This church loves youth and children, is ready to serve, wants a leader to guide them into the future, and wants to have some fun along the way.

They are eager for a leader that will build on the previous pastoral leadership, helping them realize a significant missional impact in their community.

Desiring to be a healthy, catalytic church in the northwestern side of Ohio, the church understands the need to change, adapt, be stretched, and raise up and deploy the increasing number of teens and young adults who have recently called Spencerville and surrounding areas home.

The Call

Spencerville Church of the Nazarene is seeking a pastor whose passion for the rural environment is matched with a passion for the least, the last, and the lost.

They desire a true missionary mindset, a willingness to lead the church into new territory, a shepherding heart, and the patience and longevity to settle in and call this Ohio community home.

Spencerville is looking for a leader who has capacity to help them discern their unique mission and vision for this next season of ministry and the ability to develop and deploy a fresh expression of the church to the broader community.

This leader should be:

• An ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene or seeking ordination
• Committed to support the broader mission of the Northwestern Ohio District to develop connected, healthy, multiplying congregations
• Committed to a culture of discipleship and leadership development, multiplying the number of people committed to the mission of Jesus
• Bible-Centered preacher and teacher who equips others to do what they have been shaped by God to do
• Culturally humble, recognizing that ministry in rural environments requires a learner’s heart and trust is given slowly and earned over time
• Generous, hospitable, and socially engaged with people disconnected from the hope, message, and story of Jesus
• Thrive in interconnected settings where culturally things move at a more measured pace
• Live within the missional field the church is working to reach
• Be a starter; this leader operates from an opportunity mindset rather than a scarcity mindset
• Have the capacity to see what could be
• Faithful and diligent with financial stewardship
• Have the capacity to use the Family Life Center in creative ways to connect with neighbors and the broader community

Interested?

Again, if interested, please contact Andy Monnin at andy.monnin@nwoteam.church

Website: https://spencervillenaz.com/