Funeral Program Director

Have you often felt like you wanted your work to have meaning? Every day, Resurrection staff members are doing work that matters with people who care. Resurrection’s purpose since its conception in 1990 is to “build a Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians.” Join our team and see how your contributions move the needle in transforming the World. 

Resurrection has an opening for a Funeral Program Director within our Locations Division! The position is full-time, exempt and is located at the Leawood campus at 13720 Roe Ave. Please see below for a full job description.

Job Summary  

The Funeral Program Director leads the comprehensive planning and coordination of all logistical and administrative components of funeral and memorial services at Resurrection. This role ensures that each service is organized with excellence, compassion, and attention to detail, reflecting the church’s values, vision, and standards of hospitality. While the Care Pastors serve as the primary source of spiritual and emotional care for grieving families, the Funeral Program Director provides leadership, organization, and collaboration for all subsequent event details.

Essential Responsibilities and Expectations: 

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. 

• Lead a team of funeral coordinators, assistants, and volunteers—including recruiting, training, scheduling, and ongoing support.
• Coordinate all logistical details of funeral services at Resurrection’s Leawood location, ensuring alignment with standards and hospitality practices.
• Receive funeral inquiries and initiate timely, compassionate response to families.
• Support the funeral processes at all Resurrection locations ensuring alignment with standards and hospitality practices.
• Communicate with internal departments including Care, Facilities, Worship, Tech, Catering, and the Sr. Pastor’s office to ensure seamless coordination of funerals.
• Oversee the production of funeral bulletins and memorial materials.
• Manage memorial garden coordination and niche sales. 
• Maintain funeral documentation, family communications, and service records in the church database.
• Ensure quality assurance across all funeral-related services, implementing feedback loops for continuous improvement.
• Manage budget tracking, vendor payments, team payroll, and funeral-related purchasing/accounts payable.
• Project manage across all funeral events—establishing timelines, responsibilities, and communication channels.
• Implement systems and checklists that uphold consistency and reduce errors.
• Benchmark other churches and funeral ministries to continuously improve Resurrection’s funeral experience.

Churchwide

• Follow Jesus and engage in the “five essential practices” of the Christian life: worship, study, serve, give, and share.
• Support Resurrection’s purpose of “building a Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people become deeply committed Christians.”
• Exemplify Resurrection’s core values and support its theological direction as a United Methodist Church.

Competencies

• Team Building – Cultivates strong relationships and morale among both staff and volunteers.
• Hospitality-Driven – Makes decisions through the lens of family and guest experience.
• Detail-Oriented – Maintains excellence across logistics, communication, and execution.
• Systems Thinker – Creates and improves scalable systems for high-quality outcomes.
• Calm Under Pressure – Works well in fast-moving or emotionally intense environments.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in event or project management, especially in complex, multi-departmental settings.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills; ability to work with grieving families and multiple church teams with compassion and clarity.
• Strong administrative skills including calendar management, scheduling, payroll processing, and accounts payable.
• Experience using Microsoft Office Suite, Canva, church databases, and other workflow tools.
• Ability to manage confidential and sensitive information with discretion.
• Available for weekend or evening services, with flexibility during high-volume times.
• Available to immediately respond to calls to the funeral phone during the day, evenings, and weekends.
• Comfortable and respectful in handling cremains, including transferring them from temporary containers to permanent niche boxes in accordance with church protocols and pastoral care standards.
• Theological training not required, but willingness to be trained in grief support funeral services in alignment with the UMC Book of Discipline and Book of Worship is expected.