Writing Your Cover Letter

Customizing Your Cover Letter

Potential churches will most likely see your cover letter even before they view your resume. That’s why it’s vitally important to get it right! We’ll show you a few tips and tricks that will help your cover letter shine!

Now Playing: Customizing Your Cover Letter

Key Takeaways

After you watch the video above, read through these key takeaways that will help guide and reinforce the main points you just viewed…

Your Cover Letter's ONE (and Only One) Purpose

Remember this: The purpose of the cover letter is to get the reader to actually open your resume.

That's it.

If your cover letter results in a resume 'open' you win.

What IS a Cover Letter?

Since most of your first communication with a potential church will happen first via email, we consider the body of your initial email to the church to be your 'cover letter'.

You can still also do more of a traditional cover letter to send to the church along with your resume.

Just know... the very first thing a church will read from you (even before your resume) is what you write them in the email. Make your text enticing. The purpose of the Cover Letter is to get them to open your resume!

Set Yourself Apart with a Great Cover Letter

Show the church that you've done your research. You know who they are and are not mass-marketing your resume to them.
Give some context. Make a connection.
What is it about this church that makes you interested in the role?

Personalization Matters!

Never start with "Dear Search Committee" or "To Whom This May Concern"
Use their language as much as possible.
Make it seem like you've been 'reading their mail'! (This is EXACTLY the type of person that we're looking for!)
Personalization will get you EVERYWHERE. You have a great advantage in that very few people take time to customize their cover letter.

Before You Say Yes

Your Presenters

Todd Rhoades

Co-Founder

Todd has invested over 30 years in serving churches, having served as a worship pastor for over 15 years, a church elder for more than a decade, and in various ministry leadership roles in both the business and non-profit sectors. As the original founder and developer of ChurchStaffing.com, Todd fundamentally changed the way thousands of churches search for pastors and staff on the internet. Todd served for over a decade as a Director with Leadership Network, providing him exposure to the innovative trends in today’s church and inside knowledge of how healthy churches operate. A graduate of Cedarville University, Todd lives in Bryan, OH with his wife, Dawn.

Matt Steen

Co-Founder

Matt has served the local church for over two decades as a youth pastor, church planter, and executive pastor. Originally from Baltimore, Matt currently lives in the Orlando, FL area with his wife Theresa, and has a B.S. in Youth Ministry from Nyack College and an M.Div. and MBA from Baylor University. Certified as an Urban Church Planter Coach by Redeemer City to City and as a StratOp facilitator by the Paterson Center, Matt has made a career of helping churches thrive through intentionality, clarity, and creating healthy cultures. He is convinced that a healthy church is led by a healthy team with great chemistry, and loves partnering with Chemistry’s churches to do great things for the Kingdom.

Need Additional Help With Your Search?

Check out these additional resources from our partners at ChurchResumes.com

Our video critique will take a look at your current resume and give specific recommendations to make drastic improvements. We’ll critique your resume based on our 20 resume benchmarks:

We’ll compare your current resume against our 20 resume benchmarks. You’ll gain the knowledge to drastically improve your resume in 24 hours or less.

We’ll go over your Resume Self-Assessment step-by-step in our one-hour call together. We’ll discuss each of our 20 resume benchmarks along with specific recommendations to make your resume better. After you make the suggested edits to your resume, we’ll provided video feedback with any follow-up items

One-on-one mentoring during your transition will make a huge difference. You’ll have a trusted partner and confidant to work with your throughout the search process. We’ll dive into areas that are important to YOU…

Customizing Your Cover Letter​