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You’re the good shepherd. Your sermons turn a light on in your parishioners’ hearts. Convince the hiring team you’ll grow the congregation with this sample pastor resume & guide.
Not many people realize that being a pastor involves much more than just preaching. Writing a 30-minute sermon could take up to 10 hours. Besides, there are administrative tasks, meetings, visits, fundraising, and other, sometimes quite surprising responsibilities. On top of that, there is a need for impeccable communication skills and great charisma.
Good news is, that’s already a solid foundation for a spellbinding pastor resume. All you need to do is arrange things properly and follow some resume-writing rules.
This guide will show you:
A pastor resume example better than 9 out of 10 other resumes.
How to write a pastor resume that will land you more interviews.
Tips and examples of how to put skills and achievements on a pastor resume.
How to describe your experience on a resume for a pastor to get any job you want.
Want to save time and have your resume ready in 5 minutes? Try our resume builder. It’s fast and easy to use. Plus, you’ll get ready-made content to add with one click. See 20+ resume templates and create your resume here.
Inspiring non-denominational Christian pastor with 7+ years of experience, skilled in preaching and relationship-building. Seeking to grow and guide the congregation of the Shine Grace Ministry. At the Faith Ascension Church, grew congregation size by 30% through concentrated outreach. Increased in-service donations 26% with better sermons and direct calls-to-action around pressing community needs.
Work Experience
Pastor
Faith Ascension Church
June 2013–May 2019
Served as head pastor in a Christian church with a congregation of 150+ parishioners.
Grew congregation from 120 to 156 parishioners with directed outreach to local non-churchgoing Christians via word-of-mouth, email, and print campaigns.
Raised donations during services by 26% through stronger sermons and connecting donations mentally with real needs in the community.
Trained two youth pastors. One went on to become a pastor of a congregation with 200+ members.
Pastor
Our Lady of the Sea Chapel
Jan 2012–May 2013
Worked as head pastor in a Christian chapel with 50+ weekly churchgoers.
Raised weekly donations from $100 to $300 through direct appeals to urgent needs.
Collaborated with local town administrators to organize 20+ fundraising and community service events.
Education
2009–2011 Northpoint Bible College
Associate in Arts Degree in Bible and Theology
Led the school fundraising drive in 2011.
Conducted a project to write weekly sermons for a local chapel.
Skills
Hard skills: Writing sermons, preaching, culture creation, relationship building
Soft skills: Leadership, delegation, active listening, interpersonal skills
Activities
Volunteer to make religious rounds at the Boston Children’s Hospital.
Work in the Bunker Hill Soup Kitchen 2x per week.
Here’s how to write a pastor resume that gets jobs:
1. Start With the Best Pastor Resume Format
Pastors lead a congregation of parishoners both during and outside of church services. Aside from giving sermons, they manage other church employees and volunteers, and coordinate fundraising events and activities. A pastor resume must show strong interpersonal skills, charisma, compassion, and effectiveness.
Pro Tip: The main part of your resume is a rock. On it, build your pastor resume summary statement. Don’t start off with the statement or you’ll get stuck for things to say.
3. Design Your Resume to Fit the Pastor Job Description
This is vital:
Craft your pastor resume so it fits this professional opening.
Normally that’s a sin, but in a resume for pastor jobs it’s necessary.
Start with your school, degree, and dates of attendance.
But add positions, groups, courses you excelled in, or projects.
Do you need to share your GPA? Only if you graduated less than a year ago or it was high.
Pro Tip: Show job-related skills with your pastor resume education. If they want fundraising and leadership and you led the school’s fundraising drive, show it.
Scan the job posting for the most important. Then give evidence like I showed above.
Pro Tip: You need both soft skills and hard skills examples in a resume for pastor jobs. The hiring team wants to know you have both competence and technical abilities.
When making a resume in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check. Start building a professional resume template here for free.
Pro Tip: Make youth pastor resume bonus sections with a purpose. They should give credence to your qualifications. Making rounds in a hospital shows compassion and commitment.
Pro Tip: Send a follow-up email to the job hiring team a few days after you apply, then nudge again in one week. They’ll appreciate your diligence.
Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:
Tom Gerencer is a career expert and Certified Professional Resume Writer who has published over 200 in-depth articles on Zety. Since 2016, he has been sharing advice on all things recruitment from writing winning resumes and cover letters to getting a promotion.
Applying for a job via email? You need a perfect email cover letter (No, copy-pasting your regular cover letter will NOT do.) Check out this guide to see an email cover letter sample that gets jobs. Plus, you’ll get an email cover letter template you can adjust and use, tons of expert advice, and actionable cover letter tips.
In this guide you’ll learn *when* and *how* to use a general, universal resume. Plus, you’ll see an easy-to-use template you can copy and tweak in no time.