Best Jobs for Pastors: What Jobs Can Former Pastors Do After Leaving Ministry?

♟️ STRATEGY SHIFT: Who will help me get a job as a former pastor?

But that is still a really broad question, so where do you start?

We created an assessment for the Interview Accelerator that narrows down to the exact job title based on your skills, experience, and wiring.

But here, we’ll at least help you narrow all the options down by 66% by answering this simple question:

Are you offense or defense?

Organizations are like a team sport.
Some jobs are offense.
Some jobs are defense.

Some jobs are about winning.

• More goals

• More points

• More revenue

Some jobs are about preventing a loss.

• Fewer points from the opponent

• Less money wasted

• Decrease in risk

So answer this question:
Are you an offensive player or a defensive player?

Do you prefer more, bigger, expansion, gains?
Do you prefer efficiency, structure, a strong foundation, or eliminating loss?

What roles does this look like?

If you are an “offensive player,” you’ll likely fit in roles like

• Sales

• Marketing

• Account management

If you are a “defensive player,” you’ll likely fit in roles like

• HR

• Quality Assurance

• Accounting or Finance

Or, you could be more of a midfielder.
Maybe you enjoy playing both sides?

Roles that will likely fit you are roles like

• Operations

• Product

• Client Success

Understanding how you prefer to operate will help you to eliminate a bunch of roles that won’t fit your personality and skillset.

That way, you don’t have to waste your time wondering, “What if?” on roles that wouldn’t be a fit for you.

*Those lists are not exhaustive; there are way more jobs, but those are some of the primary functions in an organization.

You can approach it this way:
Which problem do you want to solve? How do you like solving that problem?

Is there a people problem that you can solve with coaching?
There’s a role for that.

Is there a lack of giving or donations that you can fix with conversations?
There’s a job for that.

Is there a gap in programs available for people who need them, and you're capable of creating those with great planning?
There’s a position for that.

What are those called?
Hard to say. Everyone will call them something different.

But here are some ideas below.

Recent jobs landed from the Launch Point coaching group:

To give you an idea of roles that are possible from a ministry background, here are roles that people in our coaching group have been hired for recently:

• Customer Success

• Executive Coach

• Community Engagement

• Account Executive (sales)

• Marketing Manager

• Director of Development 

• Account Manager

• Career Coach

• Project Manager

• CEO of a local non-profit

There are many other roles that would fit someone coming from ministry, but these are some of the common ones we are seeing!