1. Pulpit Minister
2. Youth Minister
3. Outreach Minister
4. College/Young Adult Minister
5. Assistant Youth/Children Minister
6. Worship Minister
7. Evangelism/Assistant Minister

I place a huge emphasis on youth/children/college ministries. I believe they are the key to a growing church both physically and spiritually. A vibrant and Christ-centered Youth program will not only help youth grow in spirit and numbers, but often attracts parents and even grandparents as well. A great Youth program functions as great outreach to both youth and adults. While I feel a worship minister is very important and great worship can definitely help a church grow, I see having additional full-time Youth workers as more important as a full-time worship minister. However, I have seen congregations that have combined positions of "Outreach and Worship Minister" or something to that effect and any combination of my #3-#5 with Worship Minister would be #3 on my list.

Ken
Acadisc.com

Keith growing up at Madison and having several yrs of ministry experience/through college listed below are my 7....although it is very hard narrowing it to 7
1. Senior Minister (Preaching)
2. Worship Minister
3. Family Life Minister (Counseling)
4. Involvement Minister
5. Youth Minister (Male/Female)
6. Childrens Minister
7. Seniors Minister

1. Senior pastor
2. Missions minister
3. Minister of involvement or assimilation
4. Worship minister
5. Youth minister
6. Children's minister
7. Minister of Administration

All should be full time and be allowed to be the ministers God has called them to be.

1. Preacher Minister (works with Worship Minister in combo)
2. Worship Minister (works with Pulpit Minister in combo)
2. Inreach/Involvement Minister
3. Outreach/Missions Minister
4. Counselor
5. Youth
6. Children
7. Seniors

1. Senior Minister (Preaching)
2. Worship & Arts Minister
3. Youth Ministers
4. Congregational Care Minister (Spiritual & Physical)
5. Children's Minister
6. Administrator
7. Community Life (Assimilation, Organizing, Communication)

What if we hired full time staff based on the most time consuming tasks and those most in need of supervision and leadership first?

Wouldn't that free the the congregation (those with other full time responsibilities) to make the best use of their time (and not be bogged down by details), while still providing leadership and supervision of tasks?

Viewing through that lens, let me suggest the following:

The order that I list these ministers does not necessarily correspond with their importance. Some things simply take more coordination, time, or leadership than others, and to me that means they are more deserving to support someone working on them full time.

1. Worship Minister

I'm struggling with the name/term for this first minister. I am not talking about hiring a song leader, so if that's what you think I'm saying, hang with me for a minute. I'm talking about more of a project manager. Planning, coordinating, and implementing your public assemblies takes a lot of time (to do well, anyway), especially if you have more than one per week. I think in practice in the past, that first minister has been called the preaching minister, but he's really expected to preach and do all of the coordination and implementation of the assemblies. I'm simply implying that we not lay that all on one individual. Let's let others ("lay members", although I'm not sure I like that term...) share the teaching and edification role at first. The first minister is going to be up to his eyeballs in all of the other day-to-day tasks simply because he is the only one there. I think asking him to preach all the time as well is unrealistic. Others will have good, relevant things to share with the group. Let them. Coordinating it all is a big enough job in and of itself.

At some point this position needs to provide good leadership of the musical aspect of your assemblies, but not necessarily right off the bat (if you have someone else that can lead it well on a volunteer basis at first).

2. "Senior" or Preaching Minister

3. Youth Minister

Our youth are our future, and they are in their most formative years. This takes great, careful leadership. Most of that happens during the summer and weekends and evenings - the times when students are not in school. Let's face it - it's hard for someone with another full time job to be available at all of those times to lead and coordinate the teens. That's why I think this position is a higher priority than others.

4. Involvement Minister

When you get to a certain size, it's good to have someone making sure people are given the tools and opportunities to serve where they are gifted. When people are serving within their giftedness you'll be amazed at what God can accomplish through so few! Coordinating this is time consuming and hard to quantify. I think it merits someone devoted to it full time once a church is large enough to support such an individual.

5. Children's Minister

At some point you'll have so many children that it is overwhelming to your volunteer coordinators. That's when it's time.

6. Administration Minister

In addition, when you get to a certain size the administrative tasks become too burdensome for your ministers and volunteers to keep up with. Remember, it takes a totally different personality type to be a minister than to be an administrator/accountant. It's not fair to expect someone to do both well.

7. Small Groups Minister

NOTE: I value small groups. I think they are vital to a group's (and individual's) spiritual health. I just think they can self-govern for longer than these other ministries.

BIG DISCLAIMER: Different situations have different needs. This can never be viewed as "one size fits all".

One of my dreams is church-planting so my thoughts of who should be on a staff and what their role should be is a little different. I believe that some roles should include a large team working together and the staff member should be the visionary and staff resource to make sure the work gets done. Most of what is done by one person is not done well. There needs to be more of a team approach to different ministries where church members, parents, and gifted workers fulfill their calling in the body of Christ.

That being said...here's my 2 cents.

1. Senior minister (leadership, staff director, vision-caster)
2. Teaching minister (does nothing but teach/preach the word as THE primary communicator. An effective communicator is not always the best leader. And the best leader sometimes gets weighed down trying to be the best communicator. Both are too crucial to have the divided attention and gifts of one person)
3. Creative arts minister (worship, drama, music, media…not alone, but staff coordinator)
4. Family minister (oversee student and children’s ministries for strategic formation)
5. Community minister (oversee small groups, develop authentic community in a body)
6. Minister of culture (thermometer so that all ministries are relevant, connect church to the local community through service and outreach)
7. TIE…Student minister/Children’s minister. Both positions need to be filled and strategically designed together. These two ministries need to have a great understanding for each other as they work together often with the same families and surely the same kids as they grow from kids to teens.

1) Preaching
2) Worship & Spiritual Dev.
3) Youth
4) Involvement
5) Community/Outreach
6) Councelling
7) Small Groups/New Members

All of these are completely dependent on the situation of the church. As a church becomes larger, the needs will vary from place to place. These seem to be the most common ones. Small groups ministries are important in large church, and this ties in well will new members, so this could be one or two positions. The majority of these ministers are mostly internal, working toward the spiritual health of those in the church, it being their responsibility to equip the church with what they need to be the outreach ministry.