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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:
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.
Sample Pastor Resume—See more resume examples here.
Trying to show pastor on a resume? See our guide:
Achievements in a Resume, Awards & Key Accomplishments
Not sure a resume for pastor jobs is your best path? See our other guides:
Judith Menezes, Pastor
judith.q.menezes@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/judithqmenezes
617-798-6360
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.
Pastor
Faith Ascension Church
June 2013–May 2019
Pastor
Our Lady of the Sea Chapel
Jan 2012–May 2013
2009–2011 Northpoint Bible College
Associate in Arts Degree in Bible and Theology
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:
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.
Show you’ll shepherd the small details.
How?
With a neatly-formatted resume for pastor jobs.
Take these steps:
Pro Tip: Put your resume parts in this order: header, summary, pastor experience, education, bonus sections. (We’ll cover each below.)
You’re lost amid the flock.
The hiring team has a stack of resumes and not a lot of time.
Catch their notice fast, with a profile on your resume.
It’s called a resume professional summary if you’ve got two years of experience or more, supply it with your 2–3 best pastor achievements.
It’s a career objective if you’re making a resume with no experience. Focus on your pastor skills, but—
Add accomplishments from non-pastor jobs that suggest transferable job skills.
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.
This is vital:
Craft your pastor resume so it fits this professional opening.
That means tailoring your relevant work experience resume section.
To do that:
Pro Tip: You might need to write a resume for career changers if you’re switching into or out of pastor work. It’ll help you make a smooth transition.
Most don’t do this right.
Listing education on a resume works better if you show a little pride.
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.
Use this pastor resume job skills list.
Hard Skills:
Soft Skills:
A word to the wise—
Don’t use all those pastor skills.
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.
When you’re done, our free resume builder will score your resume and our resume checker will tell you exactly how to make it better.
You’re not in this for the money.
Prove it.
In your resume for pastor jobs, add bonus resume parts.
Choose from:
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.
When you send a resume for a pastor job, are cover letters important?
They’re critical.
Nearly 50% of hiring teams insist on them. But—
Yours needs to be motivational.
Make your pastor cover letter this way:
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:
See more cover letter templates and start writing.
That’s it!
That’s how to write a resume for pastor positions.
How did you find your calling? Does your pastor resume do everything it should? Give us a shout in the comments. We’d love to talk!
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Want to send a cover letter along with your resume? You've got two options: email your cover letter as an attachment, or write an email cover letter. We'll show you how to do both.
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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.