Harvest Raleigh Church – Executive Pastor

Harvest Raleigh Church is seeking an Executive Pastor who will serve as the Lead Pastor’s primary ministry partner and the church’s chief operational leader. This new role will help translate vision into action by providing leadership across staff development, organizational systems, finances, facilities, project management, and strategic execution, while also serving as a pastor and shepherd within the congregation. The Executive Pastor will work closely with Pastor Mike Willis and the elder team to strengthen organizational effectiveness, increase communication and clarity, and position Harvest for its next season of discipleship, outreach, missions, and church planting.

The opportunity is not to reinvent Harvest, but to help an already healthy and deeply committed church become increasingly effective in accomplishing its mission.

• A great match will be a spiritually mature, relationally healthy leader who is comfortable and energized serving in the second chair.
• He will have the confidence to lead staff and organizational initiatives while possessing the humility to serve Pastor Mike, the elders, and a church family with a deeply established culture.
• He will likely bring significant experience in organizational leadership, team development, personnel management, and execution.
• Previous Executive Pastor or pastoral experience would be highly valuable, but Harvest is also open to an accomplished leader from the corporate or nonprofit world who has substantial church leadership experience, pastoral gifting, and the character qualifications of an elder.
• Harvest specifically identifies potential backgrounds including Executive Pastor, Associate Pastor, Senior Pastor, President, Vice President, Director, or Manager.
• The strongest candidate will also understand discipleship and Small Group ministry, communicate clearly, follow through relentlessly, and build systems without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Most importantly, he will genuinely enjoy Pastor Mike’s fast moving, relational, high expectation leadership style and desire to develop both a strong working relationship and friendship with him.

Harvest Raleigh has something that is difficult to manufacture: a deeply committed church family, strong biblical convictions, remarkably high volunteer engagement, a thriving Small Group culture, and stable leadership.

The next Executive Pastor gets to build from health rather than repair dysfunction. I especially love the opportunity for this leader to become a genuine ministry partner to Pastor Mike. Harvest is looking for someone who loves people and systems, shepherding and execution, and who finds great satisfaction in helping vision become reality.

Harvest Raleigh Church is a gospel centered, elder led church in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a strong commitment to biblical preaching, meaningful church membership, Small Groups, missions, and church planting. The church was planted in 2009 by Pastor Mike Willis and has grown steadily from 33 members into a healthy congregation of approximately 215 people each weekend. Harvest is led by Pastor Mike alongside six lay elders and a committed ministry staff.

The church was an original member of the Great Commission Collective and remains actively engaged in that network and its church strengthening and church planting mission. One of the clearest markers of Harvest’s culture is participation. Small Groups are the primary pathway for discipleship, and the church has an unusually high level of volunteer engagement, with approximately 90 percent of members serving in some capacity.

Harvest Kids serves roughly 45 to 65 children each Sunday, while the student ministry regularly engages…