Director of Care and Groups

Position Summary

Mountain Life Church is seeking a full-time Director of Care & Groups to lead these two deeply connected areas of ministry.

This director-level role helps people in the MLC church family become known, cared for, connected, discipled,and spiritually formed in community. The ideal candidate is both shepherding-hearted and systems-minded — able to care for people with compassion and discernment while also building reliable processes, developing leaders, strengthening groups and ensuring people do not fall through the cracks.

The director of care & spiritual growth reports to the executive director of ministries and serves under sr. pastor and leadership team oversight.
Position Type: Full-Time
Role Level: Director

Primary Responsibilities

Care Ministry Leadership

Lead MLC’s Care Ministry process so that care needs are received, triaged, assigned, followed up and closed appropriately.
Responsibilities include:
• Oversee the prayer / care / praise intake process, ensuring care requests are reviewed, categorized, assigned, followed up and documented.
• Determine whether needs should be handled by a pastor/elder, prayer team, mercy team, benevolence team, lay counselor, support group or outside partner resource.
• Provide pastoral care conversations, prayer, biblical encouragement and next-step guidance within appropriate ministry boundaries.
• Escalate abuse, self-harm, harm to others, severe crisis, church discipline or spiritually sensitive situations to appropriate pastoral or elder oversight.
• Protect confidentiality while ensuring the right people have the information needed to care well.
• Ensure every active care case has an owner, next step and follow-up plan.
• Maintain and update the care ministry organization structure and care processes in coordination with the exec director of ministries.
This role does not function as an elder, licensed counselor, abuse investigator or crisis-response specialist.

Care Teams and Support Ministries

Identify, recruit, lead, coach, train and support the leaders and volunteers / team members of the care ministry, including:
• Prayer Team
• Mercy Team
• Benevolence Team
• Lay Counseling
• Care Support Groups and workshops (Divorce Care, Re:generation, Re|engage, grief, trauma, other marriage and recovery, etc.)
• Future care-related groups
The director will help these teams function as one coordinated care system rather than as disconnected ministries.
This role will also oversee benevolence process standards, advise on complex financial-assistance cases, maintain lay counseling standards and boundaries and coordinate appropriate referrals to licensed counselors, partner ministries and approved community resource organizations.

Groups Leadership

Lead the overall strategy for MLC Groups as a primary environment for spiritual growth, community, discipleship and care.
Groups include:
• Activity Groups
• Care Support Groups
• Topical Groups
• Sermon-based Groups
• Other future groups and workshops
Responsibilities include:
• Set and lead the overall groups strategy in coordination with the executive director of ministries.
• Determine what types of groups MLC needs and when new groups should launch.
• Recruit, approve, onboard, train and coach group leaders and leader coaches.
• Develop a healthy group leader pipeline.
• Help group leaders navigate care needs, conflict, leader fatigue and group health concerns.
• Support group multiplication so more people can experience life-giving community.
• Evaluate group health and determine when groups should continue, adjust, pause or close.
• Ensure Rooted remains a clear recommended pathway for people getting plugged into groups.
• Ensure sermon-based group content continues to function properly and is easy for leaders to use.
Care Support Groups serve as a bridge between care and spiritual growth: Care identifies needs and groups provide structured environments where people can heal, mature and be discipled in community.

Systems, Training and Partner Resources

Own and improve the systems that support care and groups.
Responsibilities include:
• Work with the Planning Center Administrator to maintain care workflows, prayer / care / praise forms, group listings, leader applications, group registrations, support group/workshop registrations and attendance or participation tracking.
• Work with group leaders to renew group listing info each trimester to ensure accuracy and completeness.
• Train staff and lay leaders on care referrals, confidentiality, escalation, group leadership, Planning Center usage and ministry handoffs.
• Monitor process health and report trends, gaps, risks and bottlenecks to the exec director of ministries.
• Coordinate care-related referrals to approved partner ministries, professionals and community resource organizations.
• Work with Regional Impact for local partner and community resource coordination.
• Ensure Spanish-only requests can be received and routed appropriately through approved bilingual responders or translation support.

Qualifications

Spiritual and Character
• Mature follower of Jesus Christ with a clear testimony of faith.
• Agreement with Mountain Life Church’s Statement of Faith, mission, values and ministry philosophy.
• Member of MLC or willing to become a member.
• Demonstrates humility, compassion, wisdom, discretion and emotional maturity.
• Trustworthy with sensitive information.
• Able to work under pastoral and elder oversight.

Ministry and Leadership
• Experience in pastoral care, discipleship, groups ministry, counseling-related ministry, care coordination or similar ministry leadership.
• Ability to lead teams, develop volunteers and coach lay leaders.
• Able to handle sensitive conversations with grace, clarity and discernment.
• Understands confidentiality, care boundaries and appropriate escalation.
• Able to help people connect relationally and grow spiritually through group life.
• Familiarity with trauma-informed care, mandatory reporting, abuse concerns, mental-health crisis and safety protocols or willingness to be trained.
• Experience leading groups, support groups, recovery ministries or discipleship environments preferred.

Administrative and Systems
• Strong organization and follow-through.
• Able to build and maintain repeatable ministry processes.
• Comfortable using Planning Center or similar church-management systems.
• Able to manage workflows, communication, documentation and follow-up.
• Able to train staff and volunteers in process and system usage.
• Able to manage ministry budgets and resources responsibly.

Ideal Candidate

The right person for this role will love people, love the church and care deeply about helping people grow as disciples of Jesus in community. They will be compassionate without being careless, organized without being cold and pastoral without overstepping appropriate boundaries.

This role is for someone who can help MLC build ministries that are warm enough to feel personal, structured enough to be reliable and fruitful enough to help more people experience care, community and spiritual growth.