Overview
The resident will be responsible for Youth Ministry at Living Stones Community. This involves leading Wednesday night youth gatherings for 20+ teens. This number should grow to close to 40 just from the older elementary school kids already part of our congregation over the next two years! The commitment on Wednesday nights is from 5-8pm and will include cultivating a youth praise band. (The resident doesn’t have to be musically talented, though that is a plus!)
Eventually the Youth Ministry Resident will also start a Sunday Morning discipleship class for teens as well.
In addition to these roles, the YM Resident will hold office hours at least 3 days a week. In this capacity she/he will share responsibility for basic office work with the Church Administrator and Lead Pastor. The YM Resident will be expected to attend Sunday morning worship services and offer leadership from the platform as needed. Ideally the YM Resident will be a weekly part of the service, whether it be greeting, making announcements, reading Scripture, or participating in the worship team. The YM Resident will be given the opportunity to preach a few times each year as well – both when the Lead Pastor is gone and when he is present for the sake of training and experience.
The YM Resident will be encouraged to get involved with our District NYI (Youth) leadership as possible.
Finally, our hope is that the YM Resident will be concurrently working on a Master’s Degree in a Ministry-related field. To this end, 10hrs of the YM Resident’s work week will be allowed for study when classes are in session.
We will be hiring future residents every two years to serve in various ministry capacities.
About Living Stones Community Church of the Nazarene
Clovis First Church of the Nazarene was first organized in 1926 by Pastor Mary I. Hartline under the guidance of District Superintendent J.F. Roberts. Since that time, the church has moved location several times, building several buildings before eventually building its current building on N. Norris St. in Clovis in 1977. In the 1950’s a church plant was started, and then eventually its members were re-incorporated. The buildings were remodeled and doubled in size in 1986. In 2007, under the leadership of then pastor Darwin Speicher, the church changed its name to Living Stones Community Church of the Nazarene.
Living Stones Community enjoys completely paid-off facilities, and is completely debt-free. The facilities are in very good condition and kept in good condition, largely due to the long-standing work of Joel Burdell, Church Administrator.
Living Stones Community includes a wonderful preschool – Nazarene Preschool – which first began operation in 1979. It is the pre-eminent preschool in Clovis. We also host Celebrate Recovery on Thursday nights, led by members James and Cathy Lasater. We host several large yearly outreach activities including Trunk-or-Treat in October and a Living Nativity in December. We are currently planning to add on a community service project each year in the summer.
Living Stones Community is currently led by Lead Pastor Dr. Rusty Brian. Rusty and his family returned to Clovis to pastor Living Stones Community in July 2023 after serving in various church and academic roles all over the world since first leaving Clovis in 1998. Rusty and his wife Lauren grew up in Clovis and attended [then] First Church of the Nazarene as young people.
Living Stones Community is currently in a slow and steady state of growth and is excited to add a Residency component to its leadership and ministry team.
