Innovation Lab Executive Director

FuThe Innovation Lab Executive Director provides visionary and strategic leadership to City’s Innovation Lab, a team of forward-thinking strategists from across City Audiences working closely with the City Guiding Team to uniquely restore every community with the good news of Jesus. The Executive Director encourages and supports innovation at the audience/network level as well as empowers staff across all City to engage new metro areas or new affinity groups, to close identified missional gaps, to restore communities, and to help people find their places in God’s story.

Duties and Responsibilities

1. Walks humbly with Jesus and others to learn, grow, and work together well.
2. Empowers local-level innovation through networking, training, grants, etc. within and across audiences, in accordance with City’s Community Engagement Guidebook.
3. Incubates City-wide strategies by prioritizing opportunities based on City Leadership strategy and vision, and by coaching or overseeing newly created strategies during incubation stage until placement in City structure is confirmed.
4. Proactively develops funding for new ministry strategies.
5. Manages the Innovation Lab budget with keen stewardship.
6. Develops a process for identifying gaps and opportunities for new City ministry.
7. Collaborates with City Leadership Development and HR Directors to identify and raise new leaders for incubated City-wide strategies.
8. Builds partnerships with outside organizations and individuals to benefit Innovation Lab-supported teams and strategies, and to engage gap communities.
9. Vets and qualifies new and existing strategies for access to Innovation Lab resources, in accordance with City’s Community Engagement Guidebook.
10. Recruits and builds a qualified, God-honoring team to accomplish these goals in partnership with City HR.
11. Participates in City coaching, leadership events, and other leadership development opportunities.

Qualifications and Abilities

• Spiritual maturity: humbly demonstrates the gospel in their lives.
• Commitment to City’s mission (Engaging the curious and equipping the follower so everyone finds their place in God’s story), vision (Uniquely restoring every community with the good news of Jesus), and postures (courageous, curious, connected).
• Commitment to City’s movement model (indicators: evangelism, disciple-making, indigenous leaders, indigenous resources).
• Visionary skills.
• Intellectual flexibility.
• Ability to work within and outside Cru, including a demonstrable readiness to collaborate heavily with City Innovation Lab, City Audience Leaders, City Team Leaders, City Capacity Leaders, and the City Guiding Team.
• Resourcefulness. Can keep pursuing goals when resources seem scarce.
• Ability to gather, grow, and maintain teams and resources.
• Ability to unify people around a common purpose.
• Ability to understand nuance and complexity.
• High cultural intelligence and a commitment to continuous growth in cultural intelligence.
• Ability to engage at a high level without steamrolling others.
• Strategic thinking: the ability to see the whole and pursue new possibilities.
• Ability to self-start, be self-disciplined, show initiative, budget time, as well as meet deadlines and production schedules.
• Excellent judgment.
• Bachelor’s degree is required; a Master’s degree in theology, ministry, nonprofit management, or a related field is preferred.
• Preferred: 5 or more years of senior leadership experience.

Location: Fully remote (anywhere in the United States)

Pay: This is a self-funded position. Staff at Cru raise their own funds to serve in this position. Rate of pay will be determined by the applicant's fund raising goals.