Posted 4/2/2025
Job Title:
Director of Liturgy and Music Ministries
Hours:
Full time
Parish:
Our Lady of Mercy Parish
4432 N. Troy St.
Chicago, IL, 60625
Description:
JOB SUMMARY
The Director of Liturgy, Prayer, and Worship is responsible for assisting the Pastor with overall efforts to ensure parishioners encounter Jesus Christ through prayer, the sacraments, and worship. The scope of this role is to discern, design, and implement ongoing liturgy, prayer, and worship opportunities for everyone in the parish.
The Director provides leadership in the planning, execution and celebration of all parish liturgical celebrations, including sacramental celebrations and may manage other ministry staff. The Director is responsible for ensuring that the public prayer space is a place of welcome and witness as family, friends, neighbors and guests gather.
The Director must demonstrate strong leadership skills necessary to identify, develop, and retain a fully formed and well-functioning team of staff and volunteer leaders critical to the success of parish ministry.
Essential Job Functions
• Lead the annual planning for liturgical seasons, sacrament celebrations, OCIA rites and special liturgies in collaboration with the parish staff.
• Direct parish liturgical ministers (e.g., lectors, communion ministers, servers, musicians, sacristans, ushers) to ensure liturgies are well planned, engaging, and in fidelity to the official liturgical books and Catholic liturgical theology.
• Train volunteers to ensure liturgical norms are followed.
• Oversee the creation of worship aids that are engaging, accessible, and functional to enable all to fully participate in the liturgies and celebrations.
• Ensure that parish worship space is welcoming to all, including visitors, through collaboration with members of pastoral staff.
• Oversee proper use of sound systems by liturgical ministers, choirs, and musicians; communicate with audio engineers on any needed maintenance items.
• Inform the people in the faith community on issues related to prayer and worship through presentations, website and bulletin articles.
• Prepare and coordinate the Liturgy, Prayer and Worship budget in collaboration with the Pastor and other relevant members of pastoral staff.
• Ensure that ministry complies with the guidelines for Protecting God’s Children for those who minister with and to children in accordance with the Archdiocese of Chicago policies.
• Develop and implement tools for improving the quality and vibrancy of prayer and worship in the parish (e.g., hospitality, proclamation of the Word, witness and music as benchmarks) in collaboration with parish staff.
Requirements:
Seeking a Full-Time BILINGUAL (English/Spanish) Director of Music Ministries (MD) for a position serving Our Lady of Mercy Parish, which contains both Our Lady of Mercy and St. Francis Xavier Churches. Our Lady of Mercy Parish contains: Spanish Choirs, English Choirs, Bilingual Sung Liturgies, monthly Children’s Choir, and monthly Teen Choir.
• Proficient in both English and Spanish.
• Previous experience directing parish liturgical ministry.
• Demonstrated expertise in collaborating with clergy, staff, parish leaders and volunteers.
• Ability to direct the work of other staff or volunteer leaders to drive key initiatives and programs.
• Practicing Catholic with understanding and support for Catholic Church teaching, mission, and values.
• Comfortable with multi-cultural and multi-ethnic expressions of liturgy; ability to support and facilitate devotional life and popular religiosity.
• Comprehensive vision and understanding of evangelization in liturgical celebrations.
• Mature discipleship evidenced in ability to comfortably witness to one’s own faith journey and develop and accompany a community of disciples.
• Developed skills in leadership and management; strong commitment to collaboration and teamwork.
• Excellent interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills.
• Familiarity with technology used for communicating and presenting.
• Open to ongoing formation and education as needed.
• Self-motivated, detail-oriented, collaborative, faithful, joyful witness, persistent, approachable, fair and balanced, dependable, person of integrity, sensitive to cultural, racial and ethnic diversity and hope filled.
• Available to work weekends and evenings as necessary.
Preferred Job Skills and Experience
• Master’s Degree in Liturgy, Sacred Music, Pastoral Studies, or equivalent.
• Previous experience directing parish liturgical ministry.
• Open to ongoing formation and education.
• Knowledgeable in the role of music in liturgy.
• Technically proficient in piano; guitar is an added bonus.
Special Directions:
Internal Candidates (existing employees) – Please complete the subject field of your email with the following: “Internal Candidate – Job Title – Full name”
External Candidates - Please complete the subject field of your email with the following: “Job Title – Full name”
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