Senior Director of Retreats and Operations

JOB SUMMARY: 

The Senior Director of Retreats and Operations provides strategic, spiritual, and operational leadership for Forest Home’s Guest Retreat ministry and core operating departments. This role serves as the primary architect and integrator of the Guest Retreat experience (Forest Home’s largest ministry), overseeing hosting and event planning, while also providing executive oversight to Buildings & Grounds, Guest Dining, Retail, and Accommodations.

This leader ensures exceptional guest experiences, strong ministry impact, healthy teams, and disciplined financial and operational performance, all in alignment with Forest Home’s Mission, Vision, Core Values, and Statement of Faith.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Guest Retreat Ministry

• Provide strategic leadership for the Guest Retreat ministry, including managing event planners and the guest host lead.
• Hire, train, coach, and lead a highly engaged Guest Retreat team aligned with Forest Home’s Mission, Vision, Core Values, and ministry objectives.
• Drive excellence in the guest experience by achieving agreed-upon Net Promoter Score (NPS), guest satisfaction, and retention metrics.
• Develop, manage, and report on Guest Retreat budgets, ensuring strong financial stewardship, accountability, and alignment with organizational goals.
• Ensure all Guest Retreat-related software systems are updated, accurate, well-maintained, and consistently used to prevent service failures or guest experience issues.
• Lead a weekly cross-departmental “Ready Room” meeting, providing operational leadership to all departments (including those not in the direct reporting line) to ensure readiness to serve guests with excellence upon arrival.
• Provide clear, timely, and actionable reporting on Guest Retreat performance, trends, and improvement opportunities.
• Communicate effectively at the leadership level in a way that builds trust, fosters teamwork, encourages continuous improvement, promotes root-cause analysis, and maintains a strong focus on results.
  
  

Guest Dining, Retail, Buildings & Grounds/Capital Projects and Accommodation

• Provide strategic leadership and executive oversight for Guest Dining, Retail, Buildings & Grounds (including capital projects), and Accommodations, ensuring a consistent, high-quality, and ministry-aligned guest experience.
• Hire, train, coach, and lead operational leaders and teams, ensuring alignment with Forest Home’s Mission, Vision, Core Values, and organizational goals.
• Establish and achieve agreed-upon service standards for hospitality, cleanliness, safety, and operational excellence across all operational departments.
• Drive cross-departmental alignment so all operational areas function as an integrated guest experience rather than independent silos.
• Oversee departmental budgets, forecasting, and financial performance, ensuring disciplined stewardship of resources and alignment with organizational priorities.
• Provide leadership oversight for facilities, grounds, preventative maintenance, and capital projects, ensuring assets are well cared for and projects are delivered on scope, schedule, and budget.
• Ensure operational readiness for guest arrivals, including staffing, facilities, dining, retail, and accommodations.
• Maintain strong internal controls, operational systems, and reporting accuracy to support decision-making and accountability.
• Provide strategic oversight of retail operations, including product selection, merchandising standards, pricing strategy, and guest experience, to drive mission-aligned sales growth and profitability.
• Ensure disciplined retail execution through strong inventory management, purchasing controls, point-of-sale accuracy, and reporting practices that minimize shrink, support forecasting, and protect financial integrity.
• Achieve operational employee engagement goals (Gallup Q12 or equivalent) and build healthy, high-performing teams.
• Foster strong, collaborative relationships with Forest Home department leaders, promoting trust, teamwork, problem-solving, and continuous improvement.
  
  

Executive Leadership

• Align fully with Forest Home’s Statement of Faith.
• Serve as a member of the Executive Team, contributing to the organization’s strategy, execution, people and finances.
• Collaborate with the President and Executive Team to develop and implement operational vision and strategic improvements for Guest Retreats.
• Work with President and Executive Team to launch new and innovative improvements to Guests Retreats to further the mission and vision of the organization.
• Provide strategic leadership to achieve 1-Year, 3-Year, and 10-Year Goals.
• Facilitate and support agreed special projects as requested by the President.
• Actively supports and participates in spiritual life activities.
• Performs other duties as assigned.
  
  

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:  

• College degree required in relevant field. Master’s degree preferred.
• Strong experience in developing and implementing ministry programs and in leading
• operations.
• Supervisory experience and demonstrated leadership ability.
  
  

QUALIFICATIONS: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Uphold and support the Mission, Vision and Core Values of Forest Home
• Seek the Lord God and comfortable praying for people, both in person or on the phone
• Actively supports and participates in the staff spiritual life activities
• Signed statement of faith
• Able to build high-trust and engagement with President and Direct Reports.
• Solid Biblical and Theological understanding.
• Strong communicator, both one-on-one and in group settings.
• Strong organizational skills, ability to lead others, strategic thinking, and proven administration experience.
• Assume responsibility for developing a high-trust, engaged and accountable culture throughlevel-5 servant leadership (Jim Collins).
• Able to build and develop effective and high-performance teams.
• Able to handle confidential matters with excellence.
• Able to provide conflict resolution when necessary
• Able to deal with issues and problems with wisdom and effectiveness.
• Excellent customer advocacy skills with the ability to provide exceptional service to guests and churches through processes, procedures, and training.
• Able to accomplish assigned projects utilizing excellent communication (written and verbal), project management, time management and collaboration skills.
• Ability to perform high quality work.
• Ability to develop strong partner relationships with churches and organizations.
• Ability to work well in a variety of team environments.
• Actively supports and participates in the staff spiritual life activities.
• Regular, timely attendance.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES This position is responsible for Guest Retreats, Guest Reservations, Guest Dining, Retail and Accommodations.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with a disability to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job the employee is regularly required to stand, walk, sit, and requires sufficient hand, arm, and finger dexterity to operate office machines. Requires mild physical work; some lifting, pushing, or pulling of objects over 20 pounds. Requires visual acuity to read words and numbers and speaking and hearing ability sufficient to communicate in person or over the phone.

ADA: The employer will make reasonable accommodations in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. This job description will be reviewed periodically as duties and responsibilities change with business necessity.

WORK ENVIRONMENT: The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Work involves moderate exposure to unusual elements such as extreme temperatures, dirt, dust, fumes, smoke, unpleasant odors. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate but can be loud at times.

FOREST HOME EMPLOYMENT STATEMENT: Nothing in this job description restricts management’s right to assign or reassign duties and responsibilities to this job at any time. All terms and conditions of Forest Home’s at-will employment, duties, and responsibilities are subject to the Forest Home Employee Handbook.

FOREST HOME CORE VALUES

Surrender to Christ (Romans 12:1-2)

• Abide with the Lord daily through study of His Word and prayer
• Surrender to the Lord daily through obedience to His Word
• Worship the Lord with the Forest Home Community
• Commit to grow in your faith through regular attendance at a local church
• Prioritize God, Family, and Work appropriately
• Be prepared to share your testimony with staff or guests
• Walk in Biblical purity (1 Timothy 4:12) by rejecting one’s sinful nature

Love (I Corinthians 13)

• Display the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22)
• Be respectful to others
• Demonstrate compassion

Serve (Philippians 2:3-11)

• Give generously to God and others through time, talent and treasure
• Seek to put others’ needs above your own
• Demonstrate humility in both spirit and deed
• Actively look for ways to serve

Walk in Integrity (Titus 2:11-12, Proverbs 4:23-27)

• Show loyalty to others, even when they are not present
• Do the right thing, even when others are not present
• Extend trust and seek to believe the best in others
• Ask for forgiveness quickly when necessary
• Be truthful and transparent with others

Strive for Excellence (Colossians 3:23-24)

• Demonstrate accountability with time and resources
• Request and receive training
• Desire to improve, and challenge others to do the same
• Commit to exceeding guest expectations
• Refuse mediocrity

Engage in Community (I Thessalonians 5:11-13)

• Seek first to understand before being understood
• Communicate clearly, empathetically and respectfully
• Work through conflict Biblically (Matthew 18-15-17)
• Participate in intentional and purposeful community activities
• Partner with teammates for the goal of unity and team effectiveness
• Play and appreciate “campy” fun
• Faithfully pray for one another

Innovate (Ephesians 3:20-21)

• Dream Big
• Proactively seek solutions
• Think outside the box
• Dream, plan and execute new ideas
• Acknowledge and trust that all things are possible through Jesus Christ our Lord (Matthew 19:26)